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Dante 






A DRAMA 

In Two Tableaux aA Six Acts 



Printed, not Published 
BY 

GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 

1810 N St., Washington, D. C. 



Press of 
Byron s. Adams, Washington, d. c. 






rii3 



tllBRARY of CONGRESS 
\ Two Copies Keceivec 

j JAN 8 1903 

OLASdA XXc. No. 



COPYRIGHT 1908 

BY 

GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND 



"S 






^ V 



DANTE 



CHARACTERS. 



Dante (Alighieri) 
(Guido) Cavalcanti. 



CiNO (a Pistoja) 



DiNO (Frescobaldi) 

(Cosmo) Don ATI 

SiMONE (Donati) 
(Brunetto) Latini 



The Great Italian Poet. 

A Poet and Patron of 
Dante, about ten years 
older than he ; a Lead- 
er of the White Fac- 
tion. 

A Poet and Friend of 
Dante ; but somewhat 
younger than he; a 
Member of the White 
Faction. 

A Poet and Friend of 
Dante, about the same 
age as he; a Member 
of the White Faction. 

The Leader of the Black 
Faction, and Dante's 
Enemy. 

Son of Cosmo Donati, 
and Dante's Enemy. 

An aged Teacher of 
Florence, much re- 
spected by Dante and 
his Friends. 



8 



CHARACTERS. 



Beatrice (Portina) A Young Maiden, great- 
ly beloved by Dante. 
Gemma (Donati) A Young Maiden, Niece 

of Cosmo Donati, who 

became Dante's Wife. 

Bacchina a Young Maiden, a 

companion of Beatrice 
and Gemma. 
Marquis of Malaspina in Lunigiana, a Protec- 
tor of Dante in exile. 
Waitress, Priest, Monk, Messengers, Attend- 
ants, Young Men and Maidens, and Ad- 
herents of the White and Black Factions. 
Place and Time, Florence and Italy in the Four- 
teenth Century. 



DANTE. 
Opening Tableau. 
The Piazza di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. 
Backing is the Church of Santa Croce. In front 
of it are the beginnings of a Pedestal, On the 
highest part of the Pedestal, accompanied by 
others below her, zsAth whom she is playing, is a 
young girl (Beatrice) dressed in a dark crimson 
frock. Below, on the pavement gazing at her, 
stands a school boy (Dante), who seems to have 
been suddenly arrested and charmed by her ap- 
pearance.^ 

ACT FIRST. 
Scene : — A public Square or Garden in Florence, 
arranged for a Fete, as on St, John's Day, 
when, to quote from Federn's Dante, ''the 
young men clad in white led by the Senior 
d' Amour, went singing and dancing up the 
street of Santa Felicita; and women and girls, 
also in wreaths of flowers, partook in the fes- 
tivities; and music and song and ringing bells 
ailed the air with joyful sounds,'' Backing at 
the Right, a bench; at the Left front a booth ar- 
ranged for the fete. In it is a table on which 
are Howers, apparently for sale, also at least 
one bottle of wine and three glasses. 



lO DANTE, 

The curtain rising discloses, at the back centre, 
Dante, Cino, Cavalcanti, and Dino, sur- 
rounding Latini. Dante has a note-book and 
pencil in his hand^ Cino, Cavalcanti and 
DiNO hold manuscripts, which can be easily 
carried in their pockets. Behind the table, 
stands a matron serving as a Waitress in the 
fete. 

Latini. A poet like a poem is a product. 

CiNO. I thought him born, not made. 

Latini. And why not both? 

Let nature frame a man to feel. He thinks 
Of what he feels. He feels what touches him. 
The substance of his thought and feeling then 
Is what experience has brought near to him. 

CiNO. But men term youth poetic. 

Latini. Rightly too. 

The freshest fires are brightest. But our 

thoughts, 
How e'er they burn and melt, not often flow 
To moulds of nature's rarest imagery, 
Till life has been well sought to find and store 
it. 

CiNO. Then youth should wait for age, and grow- 
apace, 
And try no more. 



DANTE. 1 1 

Latini. O no ; it is our trying 

That turns the latch-key of experience 
Whose doors swing inward quite as oft as 
outward. 

Enter — Left — Several Pairs of dancing Young 
Men and Maidens. They sing: 

How green the grove and blue the sky ! 

How gold and red the hedges ! 
How thrills the breeze with trills on high, 

That breathe the season's pledges ! 
For, O, the spring, in all its prime. 
Has brought the bird its mating time. 

Exeunt — Right — Dancers. 

Enter — Left — Gemma and Bacchina, and 
between them Beatrice.^ The three 
walk arm in arm, and exchange bows 
with the Gentlemen, Beatrice taking 
especial notice of Dante. 

CiNO {to Dante, as he looks toward the three), 
A trinity appropriate for St. John's day! 

Dino. The poet's graces ! 

CiNo {moving toward the three). 

And the poet's models. 
They bring us dies, when our ideas glow, 
To leave their impress and remain ideals. 



12 DANTE. 

Dante sits apart by himself on the Bench alter- 
nately writing in the note-book that he holds, 
and listening to the conversation of the others.^ 

Beatrice {to Latini). We come to tender you 
our morning greeting. 

Cavalcanti {to DiNo). Nor could the tender 
come more tenderly. 

Latini {shaking hands with the three young 
women). I thank you. 

Bacchina {turning to Dino). Will you recom- 
mend me now? 

Dino. For what? 

Bacchina. Why, if a king's touch cure 

king's evil, 
A master's touch should cure the master's evil. 

Dino. And what is that ? 

Bacchina {looking toward Latini). All evil in 
the world, 
To him, is lack of culture. 

Dino. So you seek 

To come in touch with him? 

Bacchina {laughingly). And with his pupils. 
(Giving her hand to Dino. Both join in the 
dance that follows.) 



DANTE. ' 13 

Enter — Right — Pairs of Dancing Young Men 
and Maidens. They Sing: 

How keen the glance, and bright the flush! 

How sense the soul resembles ! 
How throbs the heart that heed would hush 

Through lips where music trembles! 
For, O, the spring of round and rhyme 
Has brought mankind its mating-time ! 

Exeunt — Left — Dancers. 

Enter — Left — Donati. 

Cino and Dino talk 7mth Gemma and Bacchina. 

Cavalcanti (to Beatrice). You heard what 

Cino said. It all was true. 

The hands of beauty when they touch and thrill 

us 
All leave their imprint on ideas, and thus 
We get ideals. 
Beatrice (laughingly). You poets wing your 
words 
Without the least conception where they wend, 
Like birds with broken feet that keep on flying 
From simple inability to perch. 
Donati. Ha, ha! 

Cavalcanti (to Donati). You heard her then? 
Donati. I overheard. 

Cavalcanti (aside to Dino). 

Is always overing something, if he can be. 



14 



DANTE. 



DoNATi {to Beatrice). Well said, Miss Beat- 
rice ! These flighty minds 
That cut connection with the world's demands 
Are sure to have a limping time of it, 
If ever they get down to useful work. 

(Beatrice laughs and bows, then joins 
Gemma and Bacchina at the Left where 
all three seem to be helping the Matron 
who has charge of the Table. Dino sits 
on the bench beside Dante. They ex- 
change, and, apparently in a friendly zvay^ 
criticise each other's writings).^ 

Cavalcanti {replying to Donati's last remark). 
They may prove useful without getting down 
As far as — ^ 

DoNATi. Useful as the splash and spray 

Above the waterfall that works my mill. 

Cavalcanti. They play a necessary part. 

DoNATi. You own 

They play? 

Cavalcanti. And play is necessary too. 

Our thoughts are children that must play to 
grow. 

DoNATi. Say children that when called to work 
must whine. 



DANTE. 15 

These brains that bellow so about their pains, 
Prove mainly their own lack of brawn to bear 
them. 
Cavalcanti. At least, they lead a peaceful life, 
not so ? — 
And that is better than a Hfe of brawls. 
DoNATi. Who lead a life of brawls ? 
Cavalcanti. I did not say ; 

But many a night in Florence is termed black. 
DoNATi. And many a coward's face is well 

termed white. 
Cavalcanti (drawing a sword zvhich Donati 
also does). 
Now by my sword ! 
CiNO. Nay, nay ; but by your sense. 

What fevers both of you is no disease 
That can be cured by surgery. 
Cavalcanti. By j^fhat tWien ? 

CiNO (pointing to the table, and rapidly filling 
three glasses from the bottle). 
By stimulants. Accurse to cutting down. 
When one can gulp down ! Save your health 

for me. 
And, while you sheathe your swords, pledge- 
gratitude 
For such delightful ways of sheathing spirits. 



l6 DANTE. 

(DoNATi and Cavalcanti sheathe their swords 
and drink with Cino). 
Exeunt — Left — Cavalcanti, Donati and 
CiNO with glasses in hand, followed by the 
Waitress carrying the bottle, 

(Di2\0, zvhen he sees them, excusing himself to 

Dante, rises and follows them.) 

Exit — Left — DiNO. 

GeaiMxV {to Beatrice, looking toz^'ard the Left). 

Ha, ha ! 

Beatrice. What set you laughing? 

Gemma. Why, to think 

My uncle's words could turn a poet's thought 
Out of his own conceit — humph ! — long enough 
To take in the conception of another. 

Beatrice. You like not poets then? 

Bacchina. They like not her. 

Gemma. They might, if they could see me. What 
they see 
Is never in the thing at which they look ; 
But, like a halo when it rings the moon, 
All in the clouds, and drawn there by them- 
selves. 
Beatrice. Break through the halo, you might 
find them out. 



DANTE. ly 

Bacchina. Or else be found out by them. 

Gemma. That is it; 

And by-and-by come tumbUng from the heights 
Where they, not we, have put us, — in a realm 
Where pebbles all seem palaces, and mounds all 

mounts 
And clouds all continents, and moons have 

faces, 
And all the littlest stars that prick the sky 
Are spear-points of some huge hobgoblin. 

Beatrice. To think things larger may enlarge 
one's thought. 

Gemma. To think things true when false may 
prove all false. 

Beatrice. Who think the poets' fancies true? 
Their brains, 
Like helmets when their metal is the best. 
Receive the light of life and flash it back. 
None take the flash for fire. 

Gemma. I see you like 

A fancy, flashing fellow ! — I the grave 
And thoughtful: 

Beatrice. Fancy is the flower of thought. 

The more of life there is, the more of flower: 
The more of thought there is, the more of 
fancv. 



l8 DANTE. 

A bear, you know, has hair upon his cheek. 
.Vnd growls, and, now and then, stands up and 

hugs. 
I like men w^lio can prove themselves no brutes. 

(Dante sits staring at Beatrice.) 

Enter — Ecft — DoNATi. 

DoNATi {noticing Dante and addressing him). 
Why, Dante, you here?^ 

Dante {rising in embarrassment). Yes. 

DoNATi {shaking hands with Dante). Good 
day. 

Gemma {aside to Beatrice and Bacchina). 
His "yes" 
Outsnubs the backset of a tutor's ''no", — 
Forbids all further effort at expression. 

Donati {to Dante and gesturing toward the 
Young Women). 
You know these ladies, do you not? 

Dante {bowing azvkzvardly) . Yes, yes.^ 

DoNATi. What book is that you hold so close in 
hand? 

(Dante closes his note-book^ and puts it inside 
his cloak.) 
A secret? 



DANTE. 19 

Dante (bowing awkwardly). Yes. 

Exit — Right — DoNATi, laughing. 

Enter — Left — Cino. 

(CiNO and Dante sit on the bench and exchange 

writings.^) 
Gemma {to Young Women at the Left, and re- 
ferring to Dante's Book.) 

His own child, probably! 
It flies to cover so much like himself. 
He is a very interesting man. 
Beatrice. You think so? 

Gemma. To himself. When all 

one's eyes 
And ears are turned like his on his own person, 
He bears about both audience and actor. 
Enter — Left — Several Pairs of Dancing Young 
Men and Maidens. They sing: 

How framed in grace and phrased in song, 

How homed in rapture real, 
How won to worth from earth and wrong 

Is love when once ideal ! 
For, O, the spring of life sublime 
Has brought the spirit's mating-time ! 

Exeunt — Right — Dancers. 
Enter — Left — Cavalcanti. 
Cavalcanti {to Beatrice). My gentle maid, 
Miss Beatrice, not dancing? 



20 DANTE. 

Beatrice. Not now, rough master Cavalcanti. 

Cavalcanti. Oh ! 

Beatrice. Oh? — We must speak as we are 
spoken to; 
And if I be a maid and gentle also 
You ought to be my master and be rough. 

Cavalcanti. Be rough? — Oh, never. I leave 
that to Dante. 

Beatrice. I should think so ! 

Cavalcanti. Wait, Miss Beatrice. 

A man may double up his fist and frown, 
And make fiend-faces merely at himself. 

Beatrice. Why so ? 

Cavalcanti. Because that self asserts itself: 
And he keeps fighting it to keep it down. 

Beatrice. That self must then be very strong. 

Cavalcanti. , It is — 

In Dante. 

Beatrice. Humph ! — Is that what troubles him ? 
Enter — Right — Dino. 

CiNO leaves Dante and goes to meet Dino, 
where standing at the Right they also 
seem to criticise each other's manuscript.^ 

Cavalcanti. It is with you. You have such 
awful eyes. 



DANTE. 21 

They hush him so his inward soul stops think- 
ing; 
And then his outward mein plays pedagogue 
And whips himself to make himself behave. 

Beatrice. A very strange man ! 

Cavalcanti. You should not say that. 

Just think how hot he must be in his heart 
To make him warp and shrink up as he does 
When you come near. 

Beatrice. He does not act that w^ay 

With others ? 

Cavalcanti. No. 

Beatrice. Some people act that way 

With cats. Kind souls then shoo these off. 
Beatrice joins Gemma and Bacchina, and, 
presently, 

Exeunt — Left — Gemma, Beatrice and Bac- 

CHINA. 

DiNo {looking at the Young Women, to Cino). 
A poet has to pose, to prose himself 
Sufficiently for some companionship. 

CiNO. To one who wed her, she would prove to 
be 
A pretty but a pert Lupatto-dog, 
And snarl at all who did not master her. 



22 DANTE. 

DiNO {looking sharply at Dante). 

But why does Dante gaze at Gemma so? 
Finds her inspiring? — I would rather risk 
Without a disenchanting yell or yolp, 
Extracting teeth than thought from such a 
mouth. 

Exeunt — Right — Cino and Dino. 

Dante {to Cavalcanti, who has approached 

him). 
Say, Cavalcanti, did you hear those words? — 
"'Why does he gaze at Gemma?" — did you 

hear? 
Say, Cavalcanti, did you hear? — at Gemma? 
They must imagine — ^ 

Cavalcanti. Yes, they must imagine. 

They never could have seen it with their eyes. 

Dante. Seen what? 

Cavalcanti. Now, Dante, I have made no 

claim 
To be your soul's confessor ; but you know 
That I have guessed to whom you wrote your 

verses ; 
And you have not denied it. — Was it Gemma? 
Dante. The next time that men watch me, they 

shall think so.® 
Cavalcanti. And why? 



DANTE. 



23 



Dante. No doubt, no thought ! What men 
conceive 
They comprehend, they cease to guess about. 

Cavalcanti. Would you deceive them? 

Dante. What men have no right 

To know, one has no right to let them know. 
Because my soulless will had made me brute, 
And kept me staring like a pointer-cur 
As if to turn to prey the very one 
I most revere, must then my voice, forsooth, 
Bark out an insult in the same direction? 

Cavalcanti. I did not say that, boy ; but it were 
strange 
To see you start to play the very game 
That you blame me for. 

Dante. Nay, I should not say 

My love sought more than one. 

Cavalcanti. Nor I, you know — 

Were it not true. 

Dante. Oh, fickle Cavalcanti! 

Cavalcanti. Why, humming bees may sip the 
sweets they need 
From every flower; and wh> not humming 
poets ? 

Dante. They were not made to sting, nor souls 
for stinging. 



24 DAKTE, 

The poets are not lesser men but greater. 
And so should find unworthy of themselves 
A word or deed that makes them seem less 

worthy. 
A man should court but one, and marry her. 
Cavalcanti. And mar the lives of all he does 

not marry? 
Dante. Nay, nay; be true to one, and let the 

church — 
Cavalcanti. The church can but confirm a fact 

that is,— ^ 
A love that lives already in the soul. 
Not outside hands, though reaching down 

from heaven, 
Can push inside of it what is not there. 
Nor keep it inside, would it then pass out. 
You deem it wise or good, humane or Godly, 
To doom a boy for one mistake in mating 
To everlasting punishment on earth ? 

Enter — Left — Gemma. 

Ah, Mistress Gemma, Master Dante here 
Was looking at you, so that I rebuked him. 

Gemma. Was looking — and at what? 

Cavalcanti. Why, I should say 

Your ribbons — things that he could tye to. 

Dante. Oh ! 



DANTE. 25 

Cavalcanti. Why that was what we just were 
talking of, — 

A something on the earth, and it wears rib- 
bons, 

That one can tye to. 

Gemma. Making free, I think, 

With my own ribbons ! 

Cavalcanti. No, no; making them 

So they would not be free. 
Gemma. Yes, they might choke me. 

Dante. And what a pity that would be ! 
Gemma. Why so? 

Dante. These choking throats make faces red. 
Gemma. Make red? 

Dante. Yes; yours I never yet saw red. It 
seemed 

A readless riddle. 
Gemma. It could riddle you. 

Dante. Oh, no; you would not judge enough 
was in me 

To justify the jog. Why tap a void? 

Enter — Left — Beatrice. 

Cavalcanti goes to her, Dante, standing 
at the right with his hack to the Left, docs 
not see her. 



26 DANTE. 

Gemma (to Dante). You may be right, — more 
right than you suppose. 

Dante. More right than I suppose? — It is not 
often 
One does me so much honor. 

(They continue talking at the Left.) 

Beatrice (to Cavalcanti, while she stands at 
the Right looking at Dante). 

Yes, I read 
The song you say that Dante wrote about me. 
But were he truthful, did he feel it all, 
It were but natural for him to speak 
To me. 

Cavalcanti. He is an artist. 

Beatrice. What of that? 

Cavalcanti. You know there were no art, were 
there no forms 
Of nature in which art could frame its tribute. 
But many an artist, for this reason, fears 
To emphasize the part he finds in nature 
Lest it outdo the part he finds in self ; 
So often that which seems most natural 
The one thing is that he will not let seem so. 

Beatrice (looking toward Gemma). # 

How smitten he is with her!^® 



DANTE, 27 

Cavalcanti. Whom — with Gemma? 

Beatrice. Of course. 
Cavalcanti. You think so? 

Beatrice. See him hold 

her hand. 
Cavalcanti. If your hand were where hers is, 
I beheve 
His own would tremble so he could but drop it. 
Gemma {to Dante_, while he takes her hand as if 
to bid Good-bye). 
But had I no imagination ? 
Dante. Then, 

I could not see my image in you, could I ? 
And if — to quote you — I but think of self, 
You could not make me think of anything. 
Gemma. I could not help you much then? 

Exit — Left — Beatrice. 

Dante. No ; not if 

Myself be what I think. 

(Gemma and Dante bow to each other,) 

Exit — Right — Gem ma. 

(Dante takes his note-book from his pocket, and 

begins to zvrite. ) 
Cavalcanti {approaching, and laying his hand 
on Dante's shoulder). 

What are you doing? 



28 DANTE. 



Dante. Am writing. 



Cavalcanti. Yes, I saw that. — ^Writing 

what ? 

Dante. What comes to me.^^ 

Cavalcanti {zvith a gesture tozvard the Right), 
From her? 

Dante. Yes, partly so; 

And partly from myself. 

Cavalcanti. You write it down 

To save it? 

Dante. Yes, and save myself. You know 

That writing is my mission. ^^ 

Cavalcanti. What was that 

Which she suggested ? 

Dante {after hesitating a moment). Why, 
some minds that try 

To be in touch with ours but tickle them ; 

Or vex an itching that can merely fret us. 

Withal, too, they but scratch the brain's out- 
side; 

And then, as if they took the hair for thought, 

Exhibit this, when tossed and puffed, as prov- 
ing 

How they themselves have thus our brain de- 
veloped. 



DANTE. 29 

Cavalcanti {laughing heartily, then taking from 

his pocket a manuscript poem). 
No touch like that though, led you to write 

this/^^ 
Why is it, boy, you hold your love so secret ? 

Dante. Had you a glimpse of God like no one 
else's 
You would not speak of it? 

Cavalcanti. Why not? 

Dante. It might 

Subject Him to the insult — might it not? — 

Of human doubt? 
Cavalcanti. You are a strange soul, Dante. 

Dante. You think my verses good? 
Cavalcanti. Both good and bad. 

Dante. Why bad ? 

Cavalcanti. Oh, not so fierce ! Not you are 

bad; 

And not your verses when they come from you. 
Dante. From whom else could they come? 
Cavalcanti. I seem to hear 

The echoes thiough them of your masters. 
Dante. Good ones ! 

Cavalcanti. Good masters give us methods but 
not models. 



2 



30 DANTE. 

You write as one who rests in a ravine 

Recording but what others have beheld 

Above w^here he dare venture. 
Dante. You would have me?— 

Cavalcanti. Climb up, or soar — 
Dante. But how ? 

Cavalcanti. The- spirit's wings 

Are grown, not given, unfold within oneself. 

But you — you get both word and thought from 
others. 

Dante. You mean my Latin? 
Cavalcanti. Yes, I mean your Latin. ^ 

Dante. The words of Virgil and the Christian 
Church, — 
The thoughts that live like spirits in the words, 
And save our thought through what they there 
incarnate ! 

Cavalcanti. The thought they save should be 
your own, my Dante. 
Are you a Roman? You should be Italian. ^^ 
With theme and language fitted for Italians. 
To lift the lives of common men, it is, 
That poems make the common seem uncom- 
mon. 
Their richest boon, believe me, that which 
brings 



DANTE. 31 

To him who reads an inward consciousness 
Of oneness with the spirit that indites them, 
And its own oneness with the loftiest spirit. 

Dante. The poet's tool is his poetic tongue. 

Cavalcanti. Tis not the tongue that makes 
the bell ring sweet; 
It is the metal of the bell itself. 

Enter — Left — Messenger. 
{to Messenger). 
Good day. You seem excited. 

Messenger. Yes, I am. 

Will never fate decree a time of rest 
For Florence? 

Cavalcanti. Not while wide awake ! What now r 

Messenger. A courier has just come speed- 
ing in. 
He says the Ghibbelines take arms again/^ 
Have fresh recruits enlisted at Arezzo, 
Have fortified the castle at Caprona, 
And gather now in force at Campaldino. 

Dante. And we do nothing? 

Messenger. Yes, Donati's blacks 

Like flocks of feeding crows we pelt with peh*- 

bles 
Are flying all to saddle. 

Dante. We should follow. 



32 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. And follow him? — no, no.^ 
Dante. Not follow him? — 

Not that great fighter? 
Cavalcanti. What? — you call him 

great ? — 
Mere bluirer of some baby brawls in Flor- 
ence ? — 
The flimsiest nerve can fret to feel a flea. 
Dante. But those who fight when no one needs 

to fight 

Cavalcanti. Are foes to public order.^^ Why, 
you seem 
To deem all people patriots like yourself. 
A little rill just starting from a spring 
-Could not be quite so gushing fresh as you are ! 
I love you, boy; but when the rill has rubbed 
A little more of soil from both its banks 
''Twill have more substance if not quite 
So much transparency. 
Enter — Left Upper — Beatrice^ Gemma and 

Bacchina. 
Unseen by Dante, they busy themselves with 

th£ flowers on the table. 
Dante. Yet, Cavalcanti, 

There is but one thing now for us to do. 
Do two things, and we do the thing they 
plan, — 



DANTE. 



33 



To fight both black and white, and each time 

half 
Our full defense. Now who remembers fac- 
tion 
Forgets his Florence. 
Cavalcanti. True ! — and you would 

fight? 
Dante. For right to serve the church and 

Italy?— 
Fight those whose flags all fly to signal 

traitors ? — 
Fight those who all, like base train-bearers, 

come 
To smother down the freedom of the city 
Beneath an emperor's cloak whose utmost edge 
Is fringed with bleeding spears? — Were I a 

moth 
In a rug their crowd came trampling, I should 

fight- 

Ay, with my mouth, too, as you seem to ask — 
And keep on fighting, too, until I wrought 
My way to something that could not be tram- 
pled. 
Cavalcanti. All right, boy, you shall have your 

chance. We go. 
Exeunt — Right — Cavalcanti, Dante and Mes- 
senger. 



34 



DANTE. 



Enter — Left — Latini, Cino and Dino. 
Beatrice {referring to Dante's words that all 

have evidently overheard). 
And that is Dante ! 

Latini. Yes, the actual Dante. 

Beatrice. His words and ways have seemed so 
void of grace, 
To say not grit ! 

Latini. In temperaments like his 

The form is but the signal of the spirit. 
We never judge a flag by gawky flops 
Against a wind-forsaken pole ; but by 
Its flying when it feels the breath of heaven. 

Beatrice. He seemed a woman ; now he seems 
all man. 

Latini. And both are fit in one ordained to be 
A representative of all things human. 
If he by nature be a poet, then 
He should by nature be in substance that 
Which art demands of him in semblance. 

DiNO. Cino, 

We should go home. 

CiNO. What for? 

DiNO. To put on kilts, 

And shown ourselves half women. 



DANTE. 



35 



Latini. Nay, without that, 

My Dino, you can prove your womanhood ; 
For who but women take all words to heart. 
And think each point we make must point to- 
ward them? 
Exeunt — Right — Latini, Cino and Dino. 
Gemma. He may be right; but men half done, 
like eggs 
Half boiled, are very soft. I much prefer 
To have them hard. 
Bacchina. How strange ! 

Gemma, Why strange? 

Bacchina. Because 

I thought we always liked our opposites.^* 
Beatrice. You mean? 

Gemma. » Ay, you do well to call her 

mean. 
If when we walk, we bring our weeds with us, 
We cannot hope our air to smell of roses. 
Bacchina. Aha ! Humph ! — That explains it ! 
Gemma. What? 

Bacchina. The way 

You take in breath (tossing up her head and 
nose). 
Gemma. Look up, not down, eh? — I 

Would rather snatch at birds than dig for 
worms. 



36 DANTE. 

Bacchina. Have pity, Gemma ! Shell your 

thoughts before 
You fling them at us — are so hard to crack ! 
You surely would not have them crack our 

skulls ? 

Gemma. Crack moulds of jelly! Your skulls 
were more soft 
Than that to be indented by a Dante. 

Enter — Right — Cavalcanti and Dante. 

The Young Women are at the Left, and do not 
notice their hearers. 

Beatrice. A steed we drive, a stream that floods 
its banks, 
Has not less force because its gait is gentle. 
Had you but heard his call a moment since 
To Cavalcanti who behind him leads 
The half of Florence! Twas a call as brave 
As ever yet were eagles when their beaks 
Tear out the hearts from wild beasts twice 

their size 
That come to steal the young within their nests. 
While Beatrice is speaking Dante takes out his 

note-book and writes. 
Exeunt — Left Bacchina, Gemma and Beatrice. 
Dante {to Cavalcanti, referring to Beatrice's 
words) . 



DANTE. 



37 



Ah, Cavalcanti, should my sword not save 
The soul within me, when the strife comes on, 
No welcome could await in realms beyond 
So sweet, so sacred, as I just have heard !^^ 

Cavalcanti. Stay here, boy, stay ! To make a 
worthy fight, 
A man should put his heart in what he does. 
Your heart is lost. It will be left behind you. 

Dante. There, there, again, you will not under- 
stand me. 

Cavalcanti. Now Dante! 

Dante. Yes, you think my heart would stay 

When she it is has flung it toward the fight. 
What love I have, inspires me in my soul ; 
And, like the soul, it must express itself 
Through every fibre binding me to life ; 
And like the soul, too, I believe it comes 
From some far realm divine to make divine 
Myself, my world, and all that dwell in it. 
A man who feels like this, and would not fight 
For church and state and home, would be a 
devil. 

Cavalcanti. And how long, think you, in this 
world of ours 
That you can feel like that ? 

Dante. As long as love 

Like what I have inspires me. 



38 DANTE. 

Cavalcanti. Should it fail? 

Dante. Then you nor anyone could longer find 
In me a friend. All any life is worth 
Lies in its possibilities of love. 
Cavalcanti. But were love's object lost? — 
-Dante. One cannot lose 

What is eternal. Hearts must always keep 
If not their love^ what love has made of them. 
Enter — Right — The Young Men and Maid- 
ens who were the Dancers in the earlier 
' part of this Act; but the Men are equipped 

\ for battle and walk seriously and the 

'■ . Maidens follow them wnth every indica- 
tion of anxiety. Cavalcanti and Dante, 
plotting his note-book in his pocket, join 
them. 

Exeunt — Left — Omnes. 

Curtain. 



D.INTE. 39 



ACT SECOND. 

Scene: Same as in Act First, but not arranged 
for a Fete. The curtain rising discloses La- 
TiNi, CiNO, DiNO and other citizens of Flor- 
ence, also Women. 

Enter — Left — Cavalcanti. 

Latini {shaking hands with Cavalcanti). 
And so you have returned victorious. 

DiNO. Thanks to Donati ! 

Cavalcanti. Thanks to him, I fear. 

DiNO. Why fear it? 

Cavalcanti. One should always fear the 

hand 
That taps a leaking jail to flood its faction. ^^ 
Who breaks one law may live to break another. 
This very latest victory was gained 
Against the orders on our side, as well 
As ordinance of those upon the other. 

DiNO. So much the stronger he ! 

Latini. Beware of strength 

That, like the brute's, is wielded not by reason. 
Except by reason thought was never forced 
For its own good. 



40 



DANTE. 



DiNO. But if, in some just cause? — 

Latini. In lands where law supports the right, 
to seek 
To rise by breaking legal barriers 
Is worse than climbing up a dizzy stair 
By leaning on a broken bannister. 
DiNO. You may be right ; but few will think you 
so. 
The man who tramples on his country's foes 
Treads upward toward a height, however 

gained, 
Where all his countrymen look up to him. 
CiNO. And now but one can rival him. 
Latini That one? 

CiNO. Is Dante. 
Latini. Dante? 

CiNO. Yes, our Dante! Oh, 

You should have seen him when the battle 

came. 
He led the last charge, speeding on a steed^' 
Well nigh as white as was the air it slid 

through, 
His form bent down as if to hurl his head 
Against their lines, and, by sheer force of 

brain. 
Burst through them. Faster than the follow- 
ing wind 



DANTE. 41 

He flew, as if the blast that urged him on 
Were some last trump of Gabriel's, and the 

soul 
Could fear no ills, for it had passed beyond 

them. 

{looking toward the Left), 
I think him coming now. 

Latini. He is. 

DiNO. And with him 

Comes Donati. 

CiNO. Watching well the man 

That brought him victory. 

Cavalcanti. Too well, I fear! 

You give to one who never gives to others. 
He first will recognize you as a dupe. 
And then prepare to treat you as a prey. 

DiNO. They fought for Florence. 
Cavalcanti. Dante, not Donati. 

He fights that all may follow his own standard. 
Enter — Left — Dante, Donati, Simone and 

Others of the Blacks. 
People. Hurrah for Dante ! 
Dante. Nay, nay; say Donati, 

A Citizen. The charge that clove their line for 
us was yours. 



42 



DANTE. 



Dante. Praise not the spear that spHt the foe- 
men's mail, 
But praise the brain whence came the skill 
that aimed it. 

Dante shakes hands at the Right with La- 
TiNi, CiNO, DiNO and Others, then takes 
out his note-book and begins to ztrite, and, 
after a while, to talk with Cavalcanti. 
Exeunt — Right — Latini, Cinq and Dino. 

SiMONi (to DoNATi, at extreme Left, and refer- 
ring to Dante's words). 
Well said ! 

DoNATi. It was. That soft thing termed a 

sponge 
Will always hug you, when in touch with it. 
But no one finds the least impression left 
When you are not in touch with it. 

Simone. I see. 

You think then that he fears you in your pres- 
ence. 

DoNATi. I think he may not fear me in my ab- 
sence. 

Simone. You doubt him? 

DoNATi. When I choose a fol- 

lower, 
My standard must be followed, — not his own. 



DANTE. 



43 



He lets his own thought lead him ; and you 

know 
Men led b^; thought are often led to doubt. 

SiMONE. One thinking follower might make 
men believe 
Your other followers were controlled by 
thought. 

Don ATI (laughingly). You think a thug could 
ever pose as thinker ? 

Enter — Left — Gemma and Bacchina and an- 
other Woman. 
Gemma (to Donati, and loo'king tozvard 
Dante). 
And is it true he led the charge? 
Donati. They say so. 

A brave man, Gemma! but, of course, you 

know it; 
Has dared to press a suit with you, I hear. 

(Gemma nods,) 
A hero, yes ! You might not go amiss — 
I mean remain a Miss — had he his way. 

(Gemma turns toward Dante. Donati contin- 
ues to SiMONE.) 

H made a member of our family, 
He might prove ours in all things. Few have 
brains 



44 DANTE. 

Too cool and clear to feel a rise in blood 
And not be fevered and confused by it. 
No poison paralyzes thought like pride ; 
No pride as poisonous as family pride. 

Bacchina {to Gemma, and looking toward 
Dante). 
Oh, one could give a world of common men 
For just an armful of a man like that ! 

Other Woman. He must have trained his eyes 

when he was flying. 
They look as deep down through one as an 

eagle's, 
Ay, not as if belonging to the senses 
But to the soul ! 

Gemma. You think so? 

Other Woman. Think so? — Yes. 

How broad his chest is ! — Look ! — and how it 
heaves ! 

Hard work, I think, but thrilling work as well, 

To keep inside of it a spirit grand 

As his! 
Bacchina. Note you his graceful limbs, and 
how 

He poises at the waist, as if about 

To leap to some fair realm of beauty which 

His flesh enrobes but cannot realize! 



DANTE. 



45 



Cavalcaxti {to Dante at the extreme Right), 
One whose position lifts him where the crowd 
Look up to him should never use the station 
To drag* up low down brutes like this Donati. 

Dante, I only spoke the truth. 

Cavalcanti. Cook soup for swine! 

They leave you, if they fail to find it sv/ill ; 
Or else, in greed to gtt it, trip and tramp you. 
They harm you for your help; yet still stay 
swine. 

Dante. But surely, I meant right. 
Cavalcanti. Perhaps you did ; 

But when we find men claiming they meant 
right, 

We find most others claiming they went wrong. 
Dante. You doubt me ? 
Cavalcanti. It were hard not doubting one 

Who turns against his own. 
Dante. You mean? 

Cavalcanti. I mean 

Exactly what I say. A little black, 

If mixed with white, may soil the white as 
much 

As all black would. 

Dante. Yourself had been all black, 

And lost for Florence all its liberty, 



46 DANTE. 

Had I myself not urged you to the fight. 
'Tis only justice, gratitude, to own it. 
Cavalcanti. Unjust, ungrateful, am I? — What 
are you 
To fling these taunts at one who merely seeks 
To snatch you from the foils of your own 

folly. 
The world you think in is a world of fancy. 
The w^orld all live in is a world of fact. 
Exit — Right — Cavalcanti. 
(Dante looks after him, then takes out his note- 
book and seats himself on the bench.) 
DoNATi {to SiMONE^ and looking toward Dante 
and Cavalcanti). 
They miust have quarreled. 
SiMONE. Yes, it looks like that. 

DoNATi. It does ; and, when our enemies fall out, 
'Tis time that we ourselves fall in. For then 
They fight for their own cause with half their 

force, 
And with the other half they fight for us. 
SiMONE. I judge 'twas Cavalcanti's jealousy 

That caused the jar. 
DoNATi. And their twin poet-natures. 

When minds are filled so full of light conceits, 
Clipped oflf like chippings from substantial 
concepts, 



DANTE. 47 

They store fit kindling-wood, when comes a 

friction, 
To burst in flame. You know I always hold 
A dreaming man is not a dangerous foe ; 
For dreams portend their opposites. Just when 
He wings his whims to heaven, he wakes in 

hell. 
Ay, ay, a foe deficient in his brain .^ 

Is quicker vanquished than if so in body; * 
For he whose reason fails him in the fray 
Fights like a knight unbuckling his own mail. 

Exeunt — Left — Donati and Simone. 

(Gemma and Bacchina zvho have been at the 
Left approach Dante. ) 

Bacchina (to Dante). You know how all are 
talking of you? Oh, 
Your ears must flame! 

Dante (rising and putting his note-book in his 
pocket). If flaming high enough, 

I might then look like Moses. 
Bacchina. But suppose 

They talked against you? 
Dante. I would act like him. 

Bacchina. Be meek? 
Dante. Oh, yes ; as meek as he was when 

He took down Aaron's calf. * 



48 DANTE. 

Bacchina. Whose calf is here? 

Dante. Why theirs who rather would look back 
to Egypt 
Than forward to a promised land. 
Gemma. You mean 

The poet's land? 
Dante. It might mean that to you. 

Bacchina. Why not? — The poet's is the prom- 
ised land, — 
Is always promised, but it never comes. 
Gemma. Some think that he would fly to it. 
Dante. Why not? 

Som.e minds would w^alk and some would fly. 

You fear 
That those who fly all fail to leave a foot- 
print ? 
Gemma. You seem despondent. You have quar- 
reled — eh ? — 
With Cavalcanti? 
Dante. We exchanged some words. 

Bacchina. And flung them hard to make them 
hurt the thing 
They hit, not so? — They made your faces red. 
Dante. The day is warm — and pleasant. 

Bacchina laughs and turns away. 
Exit — Ri^ht — Bacchina and Other Woman. 



DANTE, 



49 



Gemma. Should be; yes — 

For one like you, whom it has proved a hero. 

Dante. A hero? 

Gemma. That is what the whole town says. 

Dante. I did but do my duty. 

Gemma. That is what 

But very few do. It gave you your chance. 

Dante. So pigmies, did one plod with them, 
might give 
A little common man a chance of greatness. 
Gemma. Of course. 
Dante. Well, I would rather work with 

giants. 
Gemma. Why? 

Dante. They could lift me up above myself. 

Gemma. But you — you do not need that. 
Dante. Not?— Not I?— 

When I am lingering here to learn from you? 
Gemma. My uncle and the people — you have 
heard them — 
Would all give you an uplift. 
Dante. When the heart 

Sinks deep as mine, touch deft enough to reach 

it 
Requires a single hand, not many. 



50 



DANTE. 



Gemma. You 

Intend to flatter? 
Dante. Do I ? 

Gemma. You appear 

To question me. 
Dante. One never questions — does he? — 

A thing in which he takes no interest? 
Enter — Left — Cavalcanti and Beatrice, and 

stand watching them. 
Gemma. I interest you then? 
Dante. Yes, all things do. 

Gemma. That holds no flattery. 
Dante. What? — to treat a maid 

As if confounding her with all things? 
Gemma {looking toward the Right), There 

My uncle comes. I think would speak to you. 
Exeunt — Right — Dante and Gemma. 
Beatrice {looking after them). He seems atten- 
tive to her. 
Cavalcanti. Yes, and goes 

To meet Donati. 
Beatrice. Is it she, or he, 

That draws him toward the Blacks? 
Cavalcanti. No fish are 

drawn 

Except by hooks first baited to their taste. 



DANTE. 



Sr 



Beatrice. He has a taste then for your enemies? 
Cavalcanti. I do not know. 
Beatrice. You doubt him? 

Cavalcanti. No; I mourn him. 

Beatrice. You may be right. Tis hard to make 

him out. 
Cavalcanti. And harder, if you make him out, 
to say it. 
At times, us men who think we understand 

him 
He welcomes but Hke strangers pushing in 
The front door of one's house before they 
knock. 
Beatrice. His poems plead with me, his Hps 
with her. 
His brain seems Hke a bat's at blazing noon 
That works but to work out some inward whim 
And aims at nothing.^^ 
Cavalcanti. Nay; it aims at all things. 

Perhaps it might be wise to let him know 
Your judgment of him. 
Beatrice. How could that be done ? 

Cavalcanti. If when one come to pluck a rose, 
he finds 
It grows on thorns, he may become more 
cautious. 



52 



DANTE. 



Beatrice. Would that be friendly? 

Cavalcanti. Are our foremost 

friends 
The ones who first forget our faults, or fail 
Of effort to correct them ? 

Beatrice. Did we turn 

Our preferences to pedagogues, and school 
The souls that came to us for sympathy, 
Though best of friends, we might seem worst 
of foes. 

Enter — Right — Dante follozved by Cino. 

Cavalcanti. We quarreled lately. Notice me 
ignore him. 

(Cavalcanti and Beatrice pass Dante 
without boziring to him. Dante sits in 
distress on the bench, and takes out his 
note-book,^^) 

Exeunt — Right — Cavalcanti and Beatrice. 

CiNO {to Dante). What is it? 

Dante. Why, you saw ! They 

were my friends. 
Oh what a world is this for souls to live in ! — 
For spirits whose one deepest wish it is 
To think at one with others like themselves. 
And all together think one thought of God ! 



DANTE. 



53 



But here one knows no wishes not imprisoned 
Where all the implements to set him free 
Are but these clumsy tools of breath and 
brawn. 

CiNO. Some understand us. 

Dante. You, perhaps, not me! — 

My soul is but an alien on the earth, 
And alien most to this brute frame that holds, 
Nor lets me say or do the thing I would. 
So what I like not, it attracts to me; 
And what I like and love, it drives away. 

CiNO. This on the day the people cheered you so ? 

Dante. You think I craved their cheering? No, 
not that. 
I only want the best I have within 
To be made better and believed, and then 
Received by those about me. 

CiNO. They all know 

How you have fought for Florence. 

Dante. Do they know 

How I would have them live, so none should 

need 
To fight for her ? Think you 'tis by the sword 
That one can set a soul, while living, free? 
Ay, not by deeds but dreaming does the spirit. 
Itself uplifted, lift up those about it. 



54 



DAXTE. 



CiNO. So you remain a poet! 

Dante. I remain 

What heaven has made me. 
CiNO. Does it come from 

heaven ? 
Dante. It comes from all in life that is worth 
living. 
Enter — Left — Two Messengers from the 
Blacks. 
Enter — Right — A Messenger from the Whites. 
Messenger from Blacks (to Dante, who 
rises). Donati and the leaders of the Blacks 
Will dine to-night at Carpi's. They await you. 
Messenger from Whites (to Dante). And 
Cavalcanti and the Whites will dine 
At Rondinelli's. They await you, too. 
Messenger from Blacks. Our invitation was 

the first. 
Messenger from Whites. And mine 

The best. 
Messenger from Blacks (drawing sword). 

Then prove it. 
(The other Messenger from Blacks also draws 

his sword). 
Messenger from Whites (drawing szvord). 

You are two to one ; 
And that is one too many. 



DANTB. 55 

Dante (drazmng his szvord to separate them). 

Here, fight fair ! 
Messenger from Blacks. You think your own 
fair play — against my side 
And back? 
Dante. I would not harm you. I would 

keep 
You both from harming one another. 

Messenger from Blacks. Oh ! 

Enter — Right — Cavalcante and Beatrice. 
(Dante does not notice them,) 

Dante {to Messengers). No flattery for your- 
selves ! In times like these 
A man would kick apart the meanest curs 
That snarled and snapped each other for the 

bone 
Beside the city gate, and so save all 
That all might still keep watch for Florence. 

Messenger from Blacks. Ah, 

You think when you have cursed us all as curs, 
That this will keep the city's peace? 

Messenger from Whites. Well, well ; 

No man that calls me cur but I call down. 

Cavalcanti What is it? Wait here. 

(Motions to Messenger of Whites zi^ho falls 
back,) 



56 



DANTE. 



Beatrice. I have sometimes heard^*^ 

That whom the gods destroy they first make 

mad. 
What pity it would be, did Florence fall, 
Because of one defender less to save her! 
When foes assail our heights they all should 

look 
To find us marshalled here in unity ; 
And all our differences hid as deep 
As are the lowest things the valley shadows. 

Messenger from Whites. You may be right. 

Messenger from Blacks {looking toward 
Beatrice). 

Some things that may go wrong 
Are righted by the touch of circumstance. 

Cavalcanti. All things are righted by the touch 
of reason. 
Without it men are but base tools of passion 
And all their world here, the abode of brutes. 

Dante {to Messengers). Your pardon, gentle- 
men; but I must dine 
In my own home to-night. I thank you much. 

Exeunt — Left — Cavalcanti, Beatrice and Mes- 
sengers FROM Blacks.. 

Exit — Right — Messenger from Whites. 



DANTE. 57 

Dante {to Cino, taking out his note-book, and 
looking toward Beatrice). 

Do your wrists, ankles, thighs, and arms, all 
ache? 
CiNO. All ache? 
Dante. Yes, ache. 

CiNO. How so? 

Dante. They ache, I say ! 

At times with too much joy, as if a-tremble 

To fly above, yet bound by brawn below ; 

Or when you bow, insulted, slighted, sad. 

They do not ache then, either? 
CiNO. No, not mine. 

Dante. You never feel your soul here in your 

nerves ? 
CiNO. No, no. 
Dante. My nerves are w^eaker, then, than 

yours. 
CiNO. Your soul may then be stronger. 
Dante. Say not that. 

CiNO. And better! 
Dante, Nay; no friendship that is true 

Was ever caught or kept by flattery. 

No; I am weaker, may be worse. 
CiNO. Take care ! 

The modest may be more unjust to self 

Than are the egotistic to their fellows. 



58 DANTE. 

Dante. If just or not just to myself, who knows 
it? 
Why even you, you do not feel as I do. 
Why should a soul, whose one wish is to be 
Akin with others — understood, — be made 
So different? 

CiNO {pointing to Dante's note-hook). My 

Dante, all the thoughts 
That flood the world spring up from single 

souls ; 
And some of these are blest by being forced 
To spend their lives interpreting themselves. 

Dante (putting his note-book in his pocket), 
I thank you ; but I fear that any soul 
That needs to be interpreted, before 
It gains the common love of common men — 
For this alone is all for which I long — 
Dwells in the doom of some uncommon curse. 

CiNO. Do not think that. 

Dante. And wherefore should I not? 

Here stood two parties. Each I strove to 

serve. 
With what result? — a brawl befitting wolves. 
Till I, dishonored bone of their contention, 
Am snarled aside. 

CiNO. An hour ago, they praised you. 



DANTE. 



59 



Dante. What care I for the masses' praise or 
blame. 
But larger atoms of earth^s common dust, 
If whirled against one or away from one, 
They cannot fill or empty thus the sphere 
Where dwells the spirit. Let them come or go. 
My soul desires not many things but much. 
Ah yes, and too much, too much, as it seems! 

Enter — Right — Gemma and Other Women. 

CiNO {looking toward them). 

Is that what you desire ? 
Dante. You said just now 

The world could not interpret my desire. 

There is but one — and all things work to make 

My presence to that one misrepresent me. 
Gemma {approaching zmth a garland in her 
hand^ and addressing Dante). 

Yes, it is brought for you. 
Dante. For me? 

Gemma. For you. 

The knight whose hard strife keeps our soil 
our own, 

As much as gardeners who keep it growing. 

Deserves the garland that is got from it. 

Enter — Left — Beatrice and Cavalcanti^ un- 
seen by Dante. 



6o DANTE. 

Dante {to Gemma and the Women, as he takes 
the garland). 
I thank you. Fitting, too, it is that these 
Th^t represent the beautiful in nature 
Should represent it, too, in human form. 
What man could fail to do his best to gain 
The city's best in symbol and in substance! 

{Bowing to Gemma, then looking up and seeing 
Beatrice, he suddenly sits on the bench^Y^ 

CiNO {bending over him). What is it? 

Dante. Nothing. 

CiNO {to the Others). Nothing, so he says. 

Perhaps the battle had exhausted him. 

Curtain. 



DANTE. 6l 



ACT THIRD. 

Scene: A Room in the House of Dante. 
Against the back wall, nearest the Right En- 
trance, is a table, on two sides of which are 
chairs. Other chairs and a sofa are in the 
Room. Entrances by Doors at Right and Left. 
The windows are closed and the light not 
bright. 

The Curtain rising discloses Dante and CiNO 
sitting at the table. Dante is listlessly look- 
ing away from a manuscript in front of him- 
self; and CiNO is diligently examining another, 

Cino (looking toward Dante). 

Why. Dante, you have lost your interest? — 

Dante. I have, 

CiNO. Your verse there is not new, of course. 
I got it from you months ago ;* but yet 
True poems hold the truth as gems the light, 
When rightly polished drawing to their depth 
All that is luminous in earth or heaven ; 
And thence reflect it not alone but flash it ; 
And not till all light go, can lose their bril- 
liance. 



62 DANTE. 

Dante. You give the reason, All my light is 
gone. 
You still write poetry? 

CiKO. Why, yes, and so 

Still need your criticism; ay, just now 
Have found a new task baffling me. 

Dante. In what? 

CiNO. A sister of a friend of mine has died, — 
A maiden of such beauty, grace and love. 
It were impossible to think her dead, 
And not be drawn toward beauty, grace and 

love 
In their diviner aspects. 

Dante. You would write 

Of her? 

CiNO. So had I thought; but what and how? — 
Perhaps you might suggest it.^^ 

Dante. Cino, Cino, 

I understand you. There are souls on earth 
With senses all so fine and penetrant 
That no thoughts in a kindred soul can lie 
So deeply hidden that they stand not naked. 
Not her you mean ; not you it is need help. 
You mean my own lost love. You mean myself. 
You think that hearts too heavy weighed with 
grief 



DANTE. 63 

* May empty through their words as well as 

tears. 
I thank you, Cino. Let my tears flow first. 
Our sorrows are half lifted when the souls 
Of our true friends have come to bear them 

with us. 
Last night when darkness fell and veiled my 

face-^ 
From those I surely thought it else had 

frighted, 
I walked the streets and watched the city 

dream. 
In lanes, in inns, in churches, and in homes 
Each face I gazed at loomed as grim with 

shadows 
As those that chilled mine own. This funeral 

pall 
Seemed hung above me wide and high as 

heaven, 
And grimdy draggled as a tear-soaked fringe, 
To drips its black between my soul and all 

things. 
CiNO. Think not she lies beneath it. Nay, she 

lives ; 
And lives where all may look for inspiration. 
Dante. The one sure proof of inspiration is 
That it inspires. I feel no inspiration. 



64 DANTE, 

CiNO. The air of heaven to-day is full of sun- 
shine. 
Shut in here do you feel it ? No ; none do 
But those who journey forth to do life's work. 
Their lot were yours, were you to follow them. 
Knocking at the Left Entrance. 
Dante and Cino both rise. 
Enter — Left — Attendant. 
Dante. Excuse me, Cino. I must calm myself — 
Will soon return. A man should not look 

grieved 
To greet a friendly visitor. 

Exit — Right — Dante. 
The Attendant opens the door at the Left En- 
trance. 
Enter — Left — Cavalcanti. 
Cino {to Cavalcanti). Good day. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Cavalcanti. I have not seen him lately — never 
since 
The death of Beatrice — 
Cino. That seemed to quench 

All ardor in him for all work. 
Cavalcanti. I hope 

But temporarily. A mind like his 
Glows like a spark upon a wintry hearth, — 
The brightest promise that the times afford. 



DANTE. 6g 

CiNO. Vitality as buoyant as his own 

Can hardly sink. Yet, whelmed in floods of 

grief, 
All men at times have need of helping hands. 

Cavalcanti. The hand that helps another most 
is his 
Whose own hand too would find help. 

CiNO. Let him know 

The help that Florence needs. 

Cavalcanti. The loss he feels 

Is like the love it followed, less derived 
From outward traits discovered in another, 
Than inward temperament revealed in self. 
Can any outward substitute replace 
That which was all within ? — But we can try it. 

CiNO. Fie comes, I see. 

Enter — Right — Dante. 
He bozvs to Cavalcanti. 
Cavalcanti. So sorry for you, friend. 
Dante. I find me in life's path, a traveler 

Whom accident has maimed, and would be left 
To die, did friends not come to rescue him. 
Cavalcanti. Ay, but they do come ! 
Dante. • Yes, I thank you, yes ; 

And yet, what can thev do for one? 



66 DANTE. 

CiNO. Perhaps 

Their outstretched hands may show that love 

is hidden 
Behind the mystery that seems to cloak it. 

Dante. I thank you, Cino. 

CiNO. Dante, I believe, 

Though hard the drill that trains the soul to 

read it, 
That every message of the stars is written 
In letters one can learn to spell on earth. 

Dante. Oh, I can do but little now with letters ! 

Cavalcanti. It seems thus to you. 

Dante. Seems thus, Cavalcanti ? — 

And what is life except the thing that seems? 
There was a time this round horizon rested 
About my spirit, as about my finger 
This ring of gold ; and in it gleamed a gem 
That centered all heaven's light, and flashed it 

forth. 
That gem it lost, and all the light is lost. 

Cavalcanti. I hope not, Dante. Florence yet is 
left. 

Dante. Alas for Florence ! 

Cavalcanti. There are those who 

claim 
Her destined to receive the help of Rome ? 



DANTE. 6j7 

Dante. How so? 

Cavalcanti. What we are asking. No one 

knows. 

CiNO. A mystery yet! The church has not re- 
vealed it. 

Cavalcanti. Too much a mystery! When men 
distrust 
Their own thought or their thought's authority 
So they disguise it all in robes of office, 
Which only men are bid to honor, then 
I fear they hide what no man ought to honor. 

CiNO. You are a skeptic, Cavalcanti.^ 

Cavalcanti. Yes ; 

As long as one thing in the world is wrong, 
Some skeptic should be here to think it so. 

Dante. Has no one tried to solve the mystery ? 

Cavalcanti. To question mysteries guarded by 
the church 
Does not provoke safe answers in our time. 

Dante. Can no one solve it but the church? 

Cavalcanti. I fear 

Donati could ; and therefore say I fear. 
Enter — Left — Attendant with a card, 

Dante {taking the card and reading it). Why, 
even now, Donati visits me. 
Will you excuse me ? 



68 DANTE, 

Cavalcanti. Ay, but may the comer 

Be levied to bear tribute to our quest. 
Dante. Will see you later. 
Cavalcanti. Yes, Farewell. 

CiNO. Farewell. 

Exeunt — Right — Cavalcanti and Cino. 
The Attendant opens the door at the Left. 
Enter — Left — Donati, Simone^ a Priest^ Gem- 
ma, and an Elderly Chaperon. 
Exit — L eft — Atte n d a n t. 
Don ATI {to Dante). When passing, though by 
accident, 
The loyal pause to honor royalty. 
So we to honor one whom we esteem. 
Dante. I thank you. You are welcome. 
{All exchange greetings.) 

Will you sit? 
{They bow, but do not sit.) 
Don ATI {to Dante). We have not met you 

lately. 
Dante. No. 

Priest. You think. 

You poets, you are called to testify 
To what incites you from within, and so 
The less you take from outside life the better? 
Dante. At times, if aimed for better poetry. 



DAKTR. 69 

Priest. Oh, say not that ! ^ 

Dante. Why not? 

Priest. If it would grow, 

A nature young as yours has need of health. 

The spirit's health is hope. Without it none 

Attain full manhood. Life is like a day. 

It wakes to longer work and larger wage, 

The brighter its beginning. 
Dante. Yes, I fear so. 

Priest. You fear so, eh? — and yet you do not 
fear 

Insulting nature when it comes to bless you 

{Pointing to the closed shutters) 

With windows barred like this, as if the day 

Had brought not light but lances. 
Dante. Think I need it? 

DoNATi. At least, enough light from the outer 
world 

To see what now has come to Florence. 
Dante. What? 

DoNATi. The Holy Father's promise and protec- 
tion 
Against the Emperor. 
Dante. Is it true? 

DONATI. It is. 



70 



DANTIL 



Priest. And that would bring the whole our 
city needs, — 
Not strength so much to fight the force without 
But spirit to unite the force within. 
Life grows here like a tree with outer branches 
Too broad for any handling, but with trunk 
So small and slender that a single hand 
Can fix its destiny for life or death. 
The trunk of all that lives is in the spirit. 
But find the hand that can be laid on that, 
You find what brings to all things bloom or 
blight. 

Dante. You mean the Holy Father's? 

Priest. I mean his. 

With outer facts we merely fashion faction, 
In inner feeling we find fellowship. 

DoNATi. He speaks the truth. 

Dante. Ay, what a noon were that ! 

There were no shade beside a thing on earth, 
If heaven's one sun were central over all. 
You think it could be done? — could end our 
factions ? 
DoNATi. Why could it not? — not many men 
would band 
Against the Holy Father. 
Dante. And were vou — 



DANTE. 71 

Were you the source whence came this consum- 
mation ? 
DoNATi. So men have said. 
Dante. And will you pardon me? — 

In thought, if not in word, my lack of knowl- 
edge 
Had lacked the honor due you. 

DoNATi. You are frank. 

Priest. A mind with thought forever in the 

clouds 

May be excused for stumbling, now and then. 

At what, if seen through, might appear mere 

shadow. 

Gemma. One may excuse a bird, if, when it flies, 
It fails in seeing everything on earth.^* 

Dante. I beg your pardon, lady — for I fear 
To court with too much courtesy the truth 
That but to be truth bids us oft be curt — 
Some poet's eyes are keen as are their fellows ! 
In searching through the pathways of the past. 
What guide men better in their task than 
poems ? 

SiMONE. But how about the future? 

Dante. 'Tis in them 

One reads the most of that which is to come. 

SiMONE. And in the present, too? 



72 



DANTE. 



Dante. In it, not that 

Which is but should be, is the poet's theme, 
And he who thinks it thinks the thought of 
God. 

DoNATi. Come, come, we need not quarrel. Not 

how men 
Can fight the air with words, but how their 

frames 
Can back their words with blows that free their 

air 
Of all that blocks right doing, this is that 
By which a man reveals his worth in life. 
And you will join with us, and with the church? 

Dante. You may depend upon me. 

DoNATi. That I shall. 

{aside to Simone.) 
Now we shall have but half the Whites against 

us. 
{to Dante). I must be going to my offices. 
{to Gemma). You said, I think, that you go 

elsewhere ? 

Gemma. Yes. 

Don ATI {to Dante). Good morning. Senior. 
Dante {bidding Good-bye to Donati, Simone 
and Others). 
Thank you for your visit. 



DANTE. 73 

Exeunt — Left — Donati^ Simone, Priest and 
Attendants. 

{to Gemma). 
They seemed in haste. 
Gemma. Are bent on business. 

Dante. You know, I sometimes think that busi- 
ness 
Is like a cyclone, fills our ways with dust 
And bustle ; yet men say it comes to clear them 
And bring us rest and comfort. Humph ! — 
farewell. 
Gemma. So kind in you to help my uncle !-^ 
Dante. No ; 

My heart belongs to Florence ; only beats 
That she may live her life ; and he was kind 
In helping her ; and I have gratitude. 
Ay, he was right. For us one hope remains, — 
The church. We both look forward to the 

church, 

And, joined by it, our union will be perfect. 

Enter — Right — Cavalcanti and Attendants. 

They overhear the last sentence. 

Exeunt — Left — Gemma and Chaperon. 

Dante {turning to Cavalcanti). 

Ah, back again? 
Cavalcanti. We are. 



74 



DANTE. 



Dante. Have news? 

Cavalcanti. We had. — 

Had learned a good deal since, just now, we 
left you. 
Dante. What was it? 

Cavalcanti. Nay, like wise men, we 

are wary 
Of friends that follow those with hostile colors. 
Dante. I do not see — 
Cavalcanti. We saw and heard and 

know. 
Dante. Oh that was nothing! 
Cavalcanti. Not for you, perhaps. 

But very much for us. 
Dante. Let me explain. 

Cavalcanti. You need not; nor excuse it. 
Temperament 
And taste, like flower and fragrance, go to- 
gether. 
What God hath joined let man not put asunder. 

Dante. But you 

Cavalcanti. Have found before, that family 
reasons, 
At times, turn white to black. 
Dante. Are no such reasons. 

Cavalcanti. Mere words are wind ; not all their 
storm or stress 



DANTE. 



75 



Can pack the air so thought cannot see through 
it. 
Dante. You mean? 
Cavalcanti. We overhead 

Dante. And think — 

Cavalcanti. And know. 

Dante. To know one needs to learn. How did 
you learn? — 
What steps were those that led up to your 
knowledge ? 
Cavalcanti. When mortals climb a path to 
truth unseen, 
They feel their way along the links of logic. 
Dante. Aha ! 

Cavalcanti. The notes just heard from you but 
echo 
The strains that all have heard you pipe for 
months. 
Dante. Why then have I myself not heard the 

echoes ? 
Cavalcanti. I take you, Dante, for a man of 
honor.^^ 
And after prying, pulling, plucking, plying. 
With such a maiden's heart, you would not 

fling 
The soiled thing back to her, face us and claim 
You had been empty handed ?^^ 



76 DANTE. 

Dante. Cavalcanti ! — 

And you, of all men, knew the thing I meant! 

Cavalcanti. The thing you said ! — To God with 
what you meant. — 

One who has not his confidence must guess it. 
•Dante. How did my spirit trip to fall so far 

In your esteem? 
Cavalcanti. We mortals are compounded 

Of sense below, and spirit resting on it. 

If sense give way, no wonder spirit falls. 
Dante. You deem me treacherous to the one 
above 

That so I love ; and treacherous too to one^^ 

That I do not love ? — By your hope of heaven, 

In your deep heart, can you believe this of me ? 
Cavalcanti. Why, think you, some men call me 
skeptical ? — 

Because I say what I believe, not so? 
Dante. But do you think? — 
Cavalcanti. What else, pray, could 

one think? — 

You just took council with Donati. 
Dante. There ! — 

Again your jealousy! He called on me, 

Not I on him. 
Cavalcanti. You know his object? 



DANTE. 



77 



Dante. Yes — 

To end our factions for us here in Florence, — 
To place above us all the sovereignty 
Which only brings good will and peace on 
earth. 

Cavalcanti. And you have pledged yourself 
and followers 
To join Donati in enthroning him? 

Dante. I have. 

Cavalcanti. You fool. 

Dante. Take care. 

Cavalcanti. I say but truth. 

A man who fails to judge the character 
Of what is promised by the character 
Of him who promises, reveals no mind ; 
For mind is what connects effect and cause. 
You knew the baseness of Donati, yet 
Guessed not the baseness that was in his plan. 
Henceforward, though you know a bush be 

poison, 
Bid men come pluck and gorge its pretty ber- 
ries ; 
And, if all die, expect no blame for it — 
You have but carried out the kind of thought 
With which heaven filled the kind of mind like 

yours. 
Surrender, would you, to the Holy Father P^^ 



78 DANTE. 

You know what that means? — All his troops 

come armed. 
Their leader is the French prince, Charles of 

Valois. 
The Emperor, I tell you, is a very god 
Beside a devil of a man like Charles, — 
A treacherous, truthless, crafty, cruel brute ; 
Who too comes pledged to slaughter or to 

banish 
Each man of us not in Donati's faction. 

Dante. Can this be true? 

Cavalcanti. It is. May heaven defend us! 
The pull that lifts one by a rotting rope 
Is far less dangerous than the help that comes 
From foolish friends. 

Enter ^ suddenly — Left — Donati, Simone, Priest 
and Attendants. 

DoNATi {noticing Cavalcanti and Attend- 
ants). 

Aha ! They would dissuade you ? 

Dante. There seems a difference of opinion 
here. 

DoNATi. I have your promise. 

Cavalcanti. And I fear a traitor. 

Don ATI {to Dante). And he has given you 
Droof ? 



DANTE. 



79 



Cavalcanti {to DoNATi). What need of proof? 
We best can judge of some things by their 

source, — 
Of days by daylight, and of good by goodness. 
Heaven sends the one, and only heavenly traits 
Can bring the other. 

DoNATi {to Cavalcanti). Yours are heavenly 
traits ? — 
He made a promise. Novv' you bid him break 
it? 

Cavalcanti. A promise made to suit a lie but 
robes 
Untruth which truth should strip and so show 
naked. 

DoNATi. Here stand my mxcn ; and if his tongue 
prove false, 

{pointing toward Dante.) 
Their blades know how to cut it loose from 
him. 

Cavalcanti. And here stand mine; and if he 

prove a traitor, 
Their blades know how to cut him loose froiTh 

us. 
Don ATI {to Dante). Now choose between us„ 

if you dare. 
Cavalcanti. Ay,, choose I 



8o DANTE. 

Dante. Have you considered that to which you 
dare me? 
To start right here a civil war in Florence? 
Kill off our bravest citizens, and open 
The doors of half our homes to lust and mur- 
der? 
And do you think that I could dare do that ? 
You bid me choose between 3^ou. You forget 
There is another power upon the earth 
Far higher, stronger, than can be your own. 

(placing his hand on the Priest) 
I hide beneath the shelter of the church. 
I vow a pilgrimage to R.ome ; and thus 

(turning to Donati) 
Fulfill my promise, 

(turning to Cavalcanti) 

and find out the truth 
From him who knows it best, — the Holy 
Father.27 

Curtain. 



DANTE. 8l 



ACT FOURTH. 



Scene : A Monk's Cell, dimly lighted by a single 
lamp connected by a door with a church, from 
zvhich the sound of musical instruments and of 
singing can be heard. The cell is plainly fur- 
nished with three or four chairs or benches. 
Tn the Right rear is an alcove in front of which 
'hangs a Curtain, This can be opened reveal- 
ing a space about the size of a window, through 
which, at times indicated in the text, a head and 
bust can be seen. 
Entrances, Right and Left, the latter into the 

church. 

Enter — LefP — Dante and Cino, shutting the door 
and making the cell dark. 

Dante. My journey wrought no good. The 

holy father 
Kept me a prisoner there for months, you 

know,^^ 
For fear my presence here should thwart his 

purpose ; — 
Was courteous, of course ; but Cavalcanti 
Was more than half-way warranted, I fear. 
In church or state, the official seems the same: 



82 DANTE. 

A palm in front to beg one for a bribe, 

A fist behind with which to threaten him. 
CiNO. Yet yoii yourself are prior of the city? 
Dante. And so have learned that when men 
give us votes, 

They lie in v/ait to get their gifts returned, — 

To vv'rest from us an undeserved reward, 

Or brand us ingrates whom all friends desert. 
CiNO. Oh, say not all ! 
Dante. No, Cino, no ; not all.^^ 

Forgive me, Cino. Since we two were boys, 

The only love I felt would be returned, 

V/as wdiat I gave to you. 
Cino. And yet they say 

The love of woman 

Dante. Could that satisfy 

And thrill with aught so true, unselfish, 
pure ? — 

I worship boyhood, thinking what we were. 
Cino. But what of Rome? 
Dante. If leading toward the wrong. 

Ought those who seek the right to follow her? 
Cino. Good children follow. 
Dante. Parents gone insane. 

Or but awry, are saved by opposition. 

Love uniformed and forced in hatred's press- 
gang 



DANTE. 83 

Is only served by those who war againsc it. 
Our thoughts of good should learn to separate 
The heavenly dove from its foul earthly nest. 
To hold the latter's dead impurity 
At one with spotless life that wings on high, 
Is often to deserve — I will not judge them. 
I would I could forget them. Do you know 
Some men there are have murder in their 

hearts 
Through all their lives; and if they murder 

not 

CiNO. They may be rightly numbered with the 
saints. 
Not what our lower nature makes us feel, 
But what our higher nature lets us do, 
Determines what we are. 

Dante. I hope so, friend. 

At times my soul appears a stormy sea. 
All rage below and rain above ; and then 
It seems the tears I shed have drained me dry. 
And left a void too deep for faith in God 
Or man to fill. 

CiNO. For that I brought you here. 

Dante. And kindly meant, but yet we mortals 
find 
That few things, when we turn them inside out. 
Are proved to be the miracles we thought them. 



84 DAXTE. 

CiNO. But you may see here for yourself. 
Dante. Oh no ! 

The time to see the feathers on a wing 
Is not the while it flies ; no, no ; and not 
While playing sleight of hand to see the fin- 
gers. 
CiNO. But you can use your judgment. 
Dante. No, again ! — 

No man who is no expert risks a judgment 
On questions experts only can decide, 
Without revealing his own lack of judgment. 
CiNO. At least, your mind is open. 
Dante. Yet to what ? — 

All brains with limits are what polyps own 
You think? — Ours too fit forms whose grasp 

can never 
Outreach the touch of short tentaculae. 
Your monk has credit here?^^ 
CiNO. With some he has. 

They think that through him they have seen the 
virgin. 
Dante. Humph ! 
CiNO. He is coming. 

Enter — Right — Monk. 
(to Monk). 

I have brought with me 
The Senior — He is prior of the city. 



DANTE. 85 

Monk. You do me honor. 

CiNO. Would consult with you 

About the city's welfare. 

Monk. I know not 

What may be granted. Sometimes at this hour, 
The while one hears the music in the church, 
I sink unconscious. Then, so am I told, 
Some higher power proclaims its presence 
through me. 

Music is heard from the church zvith the follow- 
ing words: 

The sky contains full half I see. "^ 

In soil below I live, I love. 

High in the half that looms above, 
Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

During the music, the Monk points to the 
curtain, Cino and Dante draw it aside, 
and examine the zvalls and floors behind 
and beneath; then the Monk goes into 
the alcove and draws the curtain behind 
him. The words of the song are followed 
by a soft instrumental interlude, 
Dante. Seems honest. 
Cino. I have thought so. 

Dante. Could one solve 

All motives and all means of mystery, 
There were no sphere for faith. 



86 DANTE. 

CiNO. Yes ; sit you here. 

CiNO and Dante take seats at the Left, fac- 
ing the Curtain. Throughout the seance, 
Dante, now and then, writes in his note- 
hook. 
Dante. And now you think the prior of the city 

May meet an actual holy father, eh? 
After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung: 

The sky's bright sun and stars I see. 

The soil below is guised in green. 

In heaven whose orbs are robed in sheen, 
Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

These words are followed by a soft instru- 
mental interlude. The curtain begins to 
-move from side to side. Then it opens and 
a Woman's form robed in a white gown 
appears. 

CiNO. That seems a woman. 

Dante. But the Monk was beardless. 

CiNO. Yet note how slim she is. 

Dante. She may be, yes. 

Figure. Good evening, friends. 

Dante. A very good falsetto ! 

The figure after making gestures disappears. 
CiNO. Well done, not so? 



DANTE. 87 

Dante. Too well! 

Cinq. Could you explain it? 

Dante. Why no; not wholly. What of that? 
At times, 
That facts are facts is plain without explain- 
ing. 
To know things grow, we need not know their 

methods. 
To think things handiwork, we need not see 
The hand that does the work. What was she, 

think you? — 
And what her object? 
CiNO. Was a guide preparing 

The way for more. 
Dante. Conducting spirit, eh? 

After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung : 

In thoughts within, sweet rest I see. 

In things without, but dust and toil. 

Where hang no veils of flesh and soil, 
Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

These words are followed by a soft instru- 
mental interlude. The Curtain opens, and 
a Man's Figure clothed in white appears, 

CiNO. Watch that now. 

Dante. Has a beard, and well put on. 



88 DASTE. 

Figure. The world keeps whirling on from day 
to night. 
None always dwell where ahvays glows the 

light. 
When darkness conies, and doubt assails the 

mind, 
Then light and faith come following swift be- 
hind. 

The iigiire disappears, 
Dante. Is optimistic. Yet the merest child 
Could recognize the monk there by his voice. 
And what was he? 
CiNO. A guide. 

Dante. Another, eh? — 

And learned his lesson well. But when will 

those 
That need the guiding come ? 
CiNO. Must wait and watch. 

After the instrumental interlude the following is 
sung: 

In faith and hope and love I see 
Why earth sent home the Christ that came. 
When I go home, and own the same, 

Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

These words are followed by a soft instru- 
mental interlude. The curtain opens and 
a Figure of Beatrice clothed in white ap- 
pears. 



DANTE. 89 

CiNO. Look there. I think your name was called 

too. 
Dante. Yes. — 

And shall I answer? 
CiNO. I would— go and see it. 

Dante {rising and approaching the curtain). 
Why, why, — what is it? — Cino, can you help 

me? 
Come here, please, come. 
CiNO. Why, that is Beatrice.'^^ 

Dante. You see her? 
CiNO. Yes. 

Dante. And it is not my fancy? 

CiNO. Nay, question not yourself, but her — less 

loud !— 
She else may disappear. 
Dante {to the Figure). You come to me? 
Figure. And do you know me then ? 
Dante. Are Beatrice? — 

You wear her form. — What would you have 

me do? — 
Figure. Do what you dreamt last night, and 

now design. 
Dante. And then, what then? 
Figure {disappearing). Then — we shall meet 

again. 



90 



DANTE. 



Dante. Wait, wait! (to Cino) Why, call her 

back! 
Cino. No, not to-day. 

You spoke too loud. Hear that? — The monk 
is waking. 
Dante. Why I — I had no chance to test its 

truth. 
Cino. And yet you saw her. 
Dante. Yes. 

Cino. And so did I. 

Dante. And if I come again here, can I see her? 

Enter — from behind the Curtain — the Monk. 
Dante continnes, addressing the Monk. 

What I have seen now, can I see again? 
Monk. They tell me so. And did you get the 
thought 
To guide you in the conduct of the city? 
Dante. The conduct of? — Oh yes, you thought 
of that ! 
{to Cino). 
But as I sat here, I had not that thought. 
But one sweet thought of her, and how to reach 

her; 
And what it was that filled the space between 

us ; 
And how I could describe it ! Did you hear 
The word she spake. She bade me tell my 
dream 



DANTE. 



91 



Of moving toward and meeting her. — But how 
Could she have known it ! Could I but believe 
She was a spirit sent here to inspire me ! 

{to Monk). 
And you will let me come again, and probe 
The truth of this ? 
Monk. I will ; yet now it seems 

That you believe it. 
Dante. \Vith my heart I do. 

Monk. And sometimes hearts judge better than 

do heads. 
CiNO. Ay, sometimes things may be so beautiful, 
And fill the spirit with such holy thrills, 
To doubt them were akin to doubting God, 
When face to face with his own blazing pres- 
ence. 
Monk. At least, all beauty changes what it 
brightens. 
A flower that blooms may merely fall to soil, 
But, when it does, the soil to which it falls 
Is never quite the same it was before. 
Dante. Yet mind has methods that must be 
fulfilled. 
You say that I may come again. I thank you. 

{to CiNO). 
To save mine honor that men else had 

doubted. ^« ^5 31 
I had to marry; yet I feared I wronged 



92 



DANTE. 



The memory of this other. Now, if true— - 
Oh Cino, think ! — She may forgive and guide 
me! 

Enter — Left — Attendant and Gemma. 

They open the door and leave it open, letting iv. 

much more light. 

Sh — sh — my wife. 

{gesturing and speaking to both Cino and the 

Monk). 

No word of this to her! 

Gemma {bowing to others and speaking to 
Dante). 
I came here to attend the funeral — ^^ 
Seniora Frescobaldi. Then I learned 
That you had crossed the cloister. You should 

know 
The threatened danger. Whites and Blacks 

have come 
In crowds and companies, all frowns and 
threats, 
Dante. They surely have not brought their 

weapons ? 
Gemma. Yes. 

Dante. Oh swine! — to use the very house of 
God 
As if a sty to glut their groveling hate ! — 
We should prevent this. 



DANTE. 93 

MOxXK. I will keep them parted. 

(Holding up his cross). 
Against the cross they will not dare to fight. 
Exit — Left — Monk. 
Dante. The city-guards should be informed at 
once. 
Here, take you this for me. 
(IVriting on a paper, and handing it to Attend- 
ant.) 
Exit — Right — Attendant. 
(A noise of conflict.) 

CiNO. Already fighting? 

He moves tozmrd the door at the Left, 
Enter — Left — The Monk, evidently slain, borne 

by Attendants. 
Dante (to Cino, as he himself kneels down to 
examine the Monk on the floor). 
Killed him? killed him? — and I can learn no 

more ? — 
The gates of heaven that he could set ajar, 
And he alone, must now be closed again? 
Enter — Left — Cavalcanti and Donati, 
both respectively followed by Whites and 
Blacks, Dante rises and continues to 
them). 
Oh vou accursed heathen! worse than those 



94 



DANTE. 



Who igncrantly crucified the Lord! 

You knew his messenger, yet murdered him. 

Attendant of Cavalcanti. It was an accident. 

Dante. An accident! — 

Like that which follows from the rock that falls 
Where men who lie in wait have loosened it. 
An accident — oh yes ! — that plots to arm 
The palsied, shaking, thought-void clutch of 

rage 
And let it loose to raise a hellish storm 
Just where the good have come for heavenly 

calm! 
The lightning of your flashing blades fell not 
Ey accident. 

Attendant of Cavalcanti. It was Donati's 
men. 
That started it. 

Attendant of Donati. Nay, Cavalcanti's. 

Dante. Nay, 

But both ; and all whose orders brought these 

arms. 
When mortals are our hosts, the meanest man 
Will not insult them in their homes, but you 
Come here to God's house with intent to break 
His law of love, and kill his ministers. 
Why, one might almost visit hell today 
In safety, — so deserted by the fiends 



DANTE. 



95 



Called out to take possession here of you ! 

(Some drazv swords and threaten him.) 
You threaten me? — Why not? — Just now in 

there 

{pointing toward the Left) 
Were threatening God ! — And do I fear you ? 

—No; 
I have no need. The men who dare do right 
Enlist with God, who guards — or guides them 

home. 

Enter — Right — A File of City Guards, 
There is one certain w^ay to end these troubles. 
I had my doubts before. The priors lack 
One vote by which to banish both your lead- 
ers, — 
Yes, Cavalcanti and Donati, both.^- 
Gemma. Nay, say not that! 
Dante. I say that I shall give it; 

And clear my conscience, while I clear this air, 
And clean these foul and corpse-clogged lanes 

of Florence. 
Let this be done, her son's aspiring hope 
May picture outlines of her destiny 
In hues more bright and sweet than could be 

dreamed 
By any soul bemired here and bestenched 
In blotches of your cursed Black and White. 
Curtain. 



96 DANTE. 



ACT FIFTH. 

Scene : The same as in Act Third. Backing, at 
the center, a desk connected with a writing 
table. In the desk are many papers in confu- 
sion; and, near it^ on the floor a waste basket. 
In the room are chairs and sofas. The curtain 
rising discloses Dante ztnth pen in hand sit- 
ting before a paper on the desk, humming and 
drumming zvith his fingers, as if marking off 
time to some rhythm. 

Enter — Right — Gemma. 

Gemma (to Dante). What are you doing? 

Dante. Writing. 

Gemma. Always writing. 

Bante. That is my mission. 

Gemma. Not your business. 

Dante. They differ? 

Gemma. Yes. One's mission, as a rule, 

Is wrought alone ; one's business with others. 

Things done alone may but be done for self. 

Things done with others may be done, too, for 
them. 
Dante. True missions only serve the higher 
self. 



DANTE. 



97 



Gemma. Some people always think their own 
selves higher 

Than are the selves of those about them. 
Dante. Oh !— 

You knew me as a poet when we married. 
Gemma. I knew you as a boy, too ; and I thought 

That when you grew you would become a man. 

There was a time my uncle thought so, too. 

He pictured you a hero and a leader. 

Now none dare claim you as a follower. 
Dante. None dare? 
Gemma. Who dares to have a follower 

That stabs him in the back, as you have stabbed 

Donati and your great friend, Cavalcanti? 
Dante. You know I try to follow what is right. 
Gemma. And never find the right save in your- 
self; 

And, if you did, your endless cant and chatter, 

Knagged out like warnings from a rattler's 
tail, 

Would worry off your faction's foes before 

You harmed them. 
Dante. So you think me wrong? 

Gemma. As all do. 

Who vote you prior now^ ? They tax your all 

Like some plebean. When you wish to work, 

None care to wager wages on your doing. 



98 DAXTE. 

Dante. And my own household also turn against 

me? 
Gemma. Besides descending to your disesteem, 
Your wife should hanker, eh, and hunger too 
To starve with you !^^ 
{Snatches and tears up the manuscript he is 

zuriting. ) 
Dante (trying, at first, to save his manuscript) . 

And why do you do that ? 
Gemma. To wake you up. 
Dante. One who writes out his dream 

Must be awake already. 
Gemma. I would make 

You realize it, so I tear it up. 
Dante. One dream was torn up long ago, I fear. 
Wh}^, Gemma, when I married you, I judged 
Your spirit by the beauty of its body; 
And that seemed so at one with what I fancied 
I could not doubt that it would prove at one — 
Could we but know each other, through and 

through — 
With all my soul that had conceived the fancy. 
Gemma. 'Twas not the first time life has proved 
that poets 
Are fools who judge their fancies to be facts. 
Dante. At times, my faith still thinks they may 
be facts. 



V 



DANTE. 



99 



Our fancies are the children of the soul, 

And all their heritage of prophesy 

Forms but the heir-loom to which they are 
born. 
Gemma. Yes, yes, still prating of the soul! — 
as if 

A man could take it out and measure it ! 
Dante. The stature of the soul is measured by 

The distance of its outgrowth over earth. 
Gemma. The outgrowth, eh? — explains your 

misfit, does it? — 

Oh yes ! — you have outgrown your low sur- 
roundings ? 
Dante. Why misinterpret me? I may not fit 

The world I live in. Did the Christ fit his? 

Could any man walk straight in paths of earth, 

Nor trespass on some crooked path of others? 
Enter — Left — Attendant, and behind him 

DiNO. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Gemma and Dante. Good day. 
Ding. Good day. 

Dante. And is 

there any news? 

Dino. There is, and bad. I thought I ought to 

warn you. • 

LOFC. 



lOO DANTE. 

Dante. How so? 

Ding. Donati is returning soon 

With Charles of Valois^ and the French to back 
him. 

Dante. The Whites will not be able to protect 

us? 
DiNO. The Whites have lost their leader, 
Dante. Cavalcanti 

Can be recalled now, if Donati come. 
DiNO. No, no; not he; he is beyond recall. 
Dante. What mean you? 
DiNO. He was banished by the priors 

To Sarzana. — It is the home of fevers. ^^ 

They welcomed him too warmly. He is gone. 
Dante. I never knew of fever raging there. 
Gemma. As many go astray through ignorance 

As through iniquity. Ay, there are times 

Wise rascals do less harm than righteous fools. 
Dante. You speak like that to me, and now? 
Oh God ! 

When all my soul sinks downward with the 
weight 

Of that dead body of my friend? — no pity? 

You know there was but one right thing to do. 

I could not let the wish of this rash friend 

Outweigh the safety of the whole of Florence. 



DANTE. lOi 

Gemma. And yet be sure the whole of Florence 

feels 
Less gratitude for you, than grief for him. 

His friends, at least 

Dante. I see; and I who tried 

To meet out equal justice to a hoard 
In church and state, all squirming here like 

worms 
To tomb their mates in dirt and mount upon 

them, 
Priests cursing people, people cheating priests, 
Whites boasting of white shrouds they trail 

behind them, 
Blacks of black funeral palls that follow them, 
And every one of them too mean to own 
One other man the equal of himself, — 
I stand the enemy of all. Oh God! — 
Some spirits here may seek thy higher life, 
And help their fellows. It is not for me. 
Would I mount up, I find no wings for it. 
I fall. 

Enter — Left — Attendant and Cino. 

All exchange greetings. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 

(Dante continues to Cino). 

And you, too, come to bring bad tidings? 



I02 DANTE. 

CiNO. I bring this proclamation. It concerns 
you. 

{Handing a paper to Dante.) 

Dante {taking the paper and looking at it). 
Who wrote it, and who sent it, and from 
where ? 

CiNO. It comes here from Donati and Prince 
Charles. 
They march against the city. 

Dante. But the Whites? 

CiNO. We have no leader, and the most are fly- 
ing. 

Dante. What says the proclamation? 

CiNO. It names you, 

xA.nd four besides you, summoned to appear'* 
And answer for extortion and rebellion 
Against the Pope and Charles. 

Dante. Extortion ? What ? — 

For raising pence to keep the city's peace? — 
Rebellion, toward the city's enemies? 
Who charges that? 

CiNO. It says here, ''common fame.'' 

Dante. What threatens those who fail to heed 
the summons? 

CiNO. Their property shall all be confiscated, 



DANTE. 103 

Themselves be banished, and, if caught in 

Florence, 
Be burned alive. 
Dante. If I obey the summons 

And speak the truth, they will obtain their 

wish; 
I shall be caught in Florence. 
CiNO. You should leave. 

Dante. Too true! but, first — you are a lawyer, 
Dino— 
Draw up a paper, making over all 
My property to Gemma. 

(DiNO sits at the desk and writes,) 
CiNO {taking Dante to extreme Left). Why 
not deed 
The property to some one else in trust ? 
Dante. Not safe ! If held as mine it might be 
doomed. 
Donati's niece could keep it for herself. 
CiNO. She might not deed it back. 
Dante. She would not take it 

From her own children; and, you know, be- 
sides, 
We men who wed incur a debt of honor. 
Cino. But should that let one harm himself? 
Dante. Why, honor 

Is in oneself, and so does not depend 



104 



DANTE. 



On anything another is or does. 

{to Ding). 
The paper will be ready soon, not so ? 
I must prepare me, and will then return. 
Exit — Right — Dante. 
Gemma {to Dino). You must be sure to make 

all clear and certain. 
CiNO {to Gemma). What will you do without 

him? 
Gemma. Humph! — not penance! 

We do that only to the ones we worship. 
CiNO. So women do not worship those they 

marry. 
Gemma. Not after they have married them. 
CiNO. Why not? 

Gemma. They get too near them. 
CiNO. Humph! but that depends 

On what one means. They can not get too 

near 
To anyone in spirit. 
Gemma. What is that? 

CiNO. That in us which has least of body in it ; 
And yet, like fire, may glow when bodies meet, 
And make one's whole life luminous. 
Gemma {looking at him disparagingly) . A poet! 
CiNO. Yes ; making poetry is practicing 
The language of the spirit. I should like 
To learn to speak it altogether. 



DANTE. 



105 



Gemma. Should you? — 

That wish is what sends Dante now from Flor- 
ence. 
CiNO. That wish is what sends Dante now from 
Florence ; 
I shall remember. May I quote you to him ? 
Gemma. ^Twill be so kind of you, reminding him 
Of me! 

Enter — Right — Dante. 
Dante {to Dino). The writing ready? 
DiNO {rising and handing the paper to him). 

Brief but clear. 
Dante {reading it), 
I see — will sign it. 

{to Cino and Dino.) 

Will you witness for me? 
Dante, Cino and Dino sign. 

Dante {h<inding paper to Gemma). 

There, Gemma, well nigh all I had is yours. 
You show it to your uncle. He will guard you. 
{Knocking outside. ) 
Cino {looking through the window hacking at 
the Left). 
They seem Donati's men {to Dante). They 
come to fetch you. 
Dante {turning tozvard the door). 1- 



I06 DANTE, 

CiNO. No, you must not. {Pointing to Right.) 

Leave the other \Yay, 

And jump the garden fence there — in the rear. 

DiNO. And yet the streets are fuH of them. 

CiNO. Wait, wait ! 

{removing his own hood and cloak). 

Ail know your hood and cloak. Take mine. 

None think 
Enough of these to stop and question them. 
Dante. First let me show myself ; and make 
them sure 
That I am here. 

(thrusting his head from the zvindow). 

What is it that you want? 
Voice. Yourself. 

Dante. The house is not in order. Wait. 

The madam must get ready to receive you. 
{to CiNO and Dino, as he puts on Cino's 
cloak and hood). 
I thank you for your kindness, gentlemen. 

{shaking hands with them.) 
A last word to my children ; then I go. 
Ding. Where shall we find you? 
Dante. At Verona soon — 

Will send a messenger. 

Exit — Right — Dante and Gemma. 
{Knocking outside,) 



DANTE. 107 

Voice Outside. You keep us waiting. 

CiNO {putting on Dante's hood and cloak). 
They all will deem me Dante. Note how well 
I imitate his voice. 

DiNO, Is danger ! 

CiNO {thrusting his head out of the window). 

Wait ; 

Wait till the madam — gets 

Voice Outside. It was not her, 

But you w^e want. 
CiNO. I know ; but please be patient. 
(CiNO draws in his head,) 
Enter — Right — Gemma. 
DiNO {to Gemma). Has left? 
Gemma. Will soon — 

CiNO {looking about the room). How is it with 
his papers? 
Should they discover aught? — 
Gemma moves toward Dante's desk, Cino fol- 
lows and continues. 

The speaking voice 

Is like a church bell, mainly rung for service ; 

But waiting made for sight is like a belfry, 

And draws attention to one's need of service. 

Gemma {pulling from disordered papers on the 



io8 DANTE, 

desk a manuscript, and tearing it, and then 
throwing the parts into a waste-basket). 
Not much here, — only poems ! 
CiNO. Yes, but they — 

Gemma {thrusting her hand apparently against 
a pen that pricks it). 
One could not get a pen — I mean a penny 
For all of them. You know the difference 
Between a poet and a pig? 
CiNO. No; what? 

Gemma. The pen of one is always in a litter. 

The other's litter always in a pen. 
(CiNO and Dino exchange looks as if not relish- 
ing the joke,) 

Loud knocking at the door. 
(Gemma indicates that there is nothing more in 

the desk.) 
CiNO. Now when they come, we all should bide 
by this, — 
That it was I who wore this hood of Dante — 
To keep the chill off; and {to Gemma) are 

both your friends, 
Who sped to tell you of Donati's coming. 
We thus give Dante time. 
Dino. Has need of time, 

Or else will quickly get eternity. 
Shall let them in now, eh? 

{moving toward the Left). 



DANTE. 



109 



CiNO. Ay, ay; but lend 

Your eye to me, and arm too, if they press me. 

DiNO opens the Door at the left, then apparently 

opens another beyond it. 
Enter — Left — Simone and many Attendants. 
They look around them, then besiege Cinq 
who is at the Right. Cino drazvs his 
sword, as do several of the Attendants. 
After some fencing, Cino tJirozvs aside 
his hood and cloak, 
Cino. A hood may hide a woman. This does 
not. 
Now, man to man ! 
SiMONE. Hold on ! You are not Dante. 

Cino. I never claimed to be. 
SiMONE. You acted him. 

Attendant (brandishing his sword). 

His false hood fits the falseness of his head. 
Cino. Because his hood is covering my head. 

It does not cover all his head contained. 
Attendant. It makes you take his place. 
Cino. What, I? 

Simone. Yes, you ! — 

What else have you his cloak for? 
Cino. It was cold. 

I came here to Donati's niece, — to tell her 



no DANTE. 

Donati had returned, and then I felt 

A chill assail my back. This cloak has killed it. 

Is killing chills a crime you kill a man for? 

SiMONE. But where is Dante? 

CiNO. How should I know that? 

SiMONE. He just w^as at the window here. 

CiNO. Why I — 

'Twas I talked there. 

SiMONE. Pretending to be Dante ! 

CiNO. Pretending? — Now by all that makes me 
human 
Am I to blame that you have human nature ? 
You work yourselves up to a fever, see 
The image of your own imagination, 
Then swxar 'twas I caused your delirium ! 

SiMONE. Humph ! Leave him. Search the house. 
Exeunt — Right — Dino and Cino. 

Gemma {confronting an Attendant^ as he turns 
from Cino). 

Nay, you forget. 

I am Donati's niece. 
Attendant. And what of that? 

This house is Dante's. You are Dante's wife. 
SiMONE. He flies all colors and he follows none. 

So where they fly we all are sure to track 

A turncoat treacherous to everv hue. 



DANTE. 1 1 1 

Aha, he dreamed of ending factions here : 
He did it ! — All unite in fighting him. 
Exit — Right — SiMONE and Others. 

Those remaining break windows and furniture. 

Enter — Left — Donati. 
Gemma (/o Donati). What mean these crea- 
tures here creating chaos 
In this, my house? 
Donati. It is the house of Dante. 
Gemma {showing him the paper given her by 

Dante). It is mine. 
Donati (looking at the papers). Aha! This 
makes a difference. 

(to the soldiers) Hold, hold. 

Enter — Right — Simone. 
SiMONE. The house has been searched through. 
Donati. No Dante? 

SiMONE. No. 

Donati. Withdraw, and set a double guard out- 
side. 

(to Gemma). 
They wrecked things badly. Is there more of 
it? 
GemMx\. I have not seen. 
Donati. Shall I go with you ? 



112 DANTE. 

Enter — Right — Cino and Dino. 

Who 
Are these? 
Gemma. Some friends of mine. They just had 
come 
To tell me they had heard of your return. 
DoNATi. Humph, humph! (to Simone). You 
give them passage. 
Exeunt — Left — Simone and Attendants. 
Dino (to Donati). If you please, 

We first would find our cloaks and hoods. 
Donati. Of course. 

Exeunt — Right — Donati and Gemma. 
Dino (to Cino, collecting carefully, as he speaks, 
the parts of the torn manuscript in the waste 
basket, and concealing them under his 
cloak). 
This world contains two kinds of people. 

Cino, — 
The kind who see the whole thing in its parts, 
And those who see the parts, and not the 
whole.^^ 
• Curtain. 



DANTE. 113 



ACT SIXTH. 

Scene : The Interior of a large Hall in the Cas- 
tle of the Marquis of Malaspina in Lnnigiana. 
Backing, at the center, are curtains that can be 
drawn aside. A' car the Curtains at the Left is 
a Writing Desk in which are papers belonging 
to Dante. Entrances through the Curtains at 
Back, and also at the Right and the Left. 

Enter — Right — Dante. 

Enter — Left — Cino. 
Dante {taking Cino's hands in his). Why, why! 

— Thank God to see you once again ! 
Cino. I, too, thank God. How are you? 
Dante. Well enough 

In body. 
Cino. I am pleased to find you here 

In such environment, — so beautiful ! 
Dante. Earth might have more of beauty, had 
it had 
More continence ; nor spent, and spawned 

such crowds 
Between ourselves and nature. As it is, 
What tempt our taste appear too often served 
Like viands one can scarcely find for flies, 



114 DANTE. 

Or test for spice and pepper. Well, what news 
From Florence? 

CiNO. Could one call that news which but 

Repeats the same old story? — brawls and mur- 
ders ? — 
I had to fly myself.^^ 

Dante. So had I heard. 

But, thank the Lord, it soon will end now. 

CiNO. Will? 

Dante. One time I trusted Rome — in vain. At 
last, 
Comes Henry of Luxemburg, the emperor.^" 
No doubt of him, a man of strength, have 
seen him. 
CiNO. Beneath your cloak you seem to vvear — 
not so? — 
A soldier's uniform? 
Dante. I have enlisted. 

And join him. You come too — our very man ! 
CiNO. All thought you firm of faith in the repub- 
lic? 
Dante. I am. No tyrant ever triumphed yet 
But first came cowards kneeling to be trod on. 
Yet something more is true. Strong self- 
control 
Has never yet forsaken man or clan 



DANTE. 



115 



Where did not enter the control of others. 
Which others is the one sole question now 
For half demented Florence. Let a grip 
So firm that all should feel it, rein and curb 
And guide by reason her untamed disorder, 
Think what our people, letters, art, might do. — 
Why, all the w^orld of thought would focus 

there, 
And all enlightenment find there their sun ! 
CiNO. And you have waived the student for the 

soldier ? 
Dante. I tell you, friend, say what you may of 

thought, 
Man's brawn was given him as well as brain, 
And there are things to tramp for, things to 

clutch, 
And days for doing. They are brighter, too, 
At times, than nights for dreaming. 
CiNO. You forsake 

The path of poetry? 
Dante. Why no; not that; 

Not w^holly that! I mean a man should wield 
And welcome, too, the whole that nature gives 

him. 
The fist is fashioned for the use of God 
In just as true a sense as is the finger, — 
What grasps a sword as that which guides a 

pen. 



Il6 DANTE. 

Enter — Right — Attendant. 
Dante {continues to Attendant). 

And are they ready? 
Attendant. Nay, they will not go. 

Dante. Not go? — and wherefore not? 
Attendant. Had you not heard? 

Dante. Heard what? 

Attendant. About the Emperor? — was ill. 

Dante. Oh, yes ; but only slightly — could re- 
ceive us. 
Attendant. Nay, nay; — is very ill. 
Dante. You cannot mean — 

Impossible! — that he is dead? 
Attendant. He is. 

Dante {to Cino). Now heaven defend! It must 

not, can not be. 
Attendant. And there has come a rumor with 

it too. 
Dante. What is it? — From your mien I should 
infer 
It matters to myself. 
Attendant. If you bide longer 

Within this castle, there come hints of war. 
A patron who should shield the Emperor's 

friend 
Would seem to be the foe of Italy. 



DANTE. 117 

Dante. Ah, so! — I must have time to think — I 
thank you. 

Exit — Righ t — Attendant. 
(Dante continues to Cino.) 

Oh Cino, Cino, did one ever dream 
A fate Hke mine ? — a civic leper, Cino ! — 
Turned out of his own home because a pest ; 
And then declared a pest to every home 
That would have welcomed him. This final 

blow, 
It snaps the only staff remaining now 
From which my soul could vvave a single sig- 
nal. 
Worse off am I, than were a soldier slain. 
Ay, than a traveler in a tiger's den. 
If but these limbs were plucked out, one by 

one, 
I were not doomed to live on then alone, 
An alien to all comrades, conscious ever 
That to oppose the currents coursing round 
Were vain as efforts of mere spurting spray 
To still a surging ocean. Oh, my God ! — 
To live, yet be too frail to do the work 
That makes a life worth living ! 

Cino. I have heard 

You might go back to Florence. 

Dante. How is that? — 



Il8 DANTE. 

Go back to Florence? — what?— and see those 

hills, 
My home, my children, friends, and have a 

voice 
And be again a man with countrymen ! — 
Ah, say not that, — not if it be not true! 
The brute-despair my soul has housed so long 
Is trained to bear hard blows, and beat them 

back ; 
But this frail trembling babe of hope, just born. 
Oh it were cruel murder, maiming it ! 

Enter — Left — Attendant. 
Attendant (to Dante). Some gentlemen with- 
out aw^ait you, Senior. 
CiNO. They now^ may bring the hope I men- 
tioned. 
Dante. Yes. 

He bows to the x\ttendant. 

Exit — Left — Attendant. 
CiNO (to Dante). Shall I retire? 
Dante (gesturing toward the Right Entrance). 
'Twere well. If seen with me. 
My shadow might shed blackness on yourself. 
Cino. The blackest shadows fall from brightest 
forms. 

Exit — Right — Ci no . 



DANTE. 



119 



Enter — Left — Attendant, Simone and Other 
Delegates. 

All exchange bows. 

Dante {to those entering). You come fiom 
Florence, gentlemen? 

Simone. We do ; 

And from your friends there. 

Dante. Have I friends 

there? — Thank you. 

Simone. And they have thought it better for our 
peace, 
And for the peace of other cities near us, 
To end this feud between ourselves and you. 

Dante. And I return? — What then are theii 
conditions ?^^ 

Simone. Confession, and repentance, and your 
fines, 
The stigma of oblation, and a robe 
Of penitence worn round the city. 

Dante. Humph !— 

A fool's cap, too, like that which I am told 
Was worn by Lippus Lapi Ciolo? — ^^ 
And what about my wife ? — would like to watch 
Her Dante decorate a scene like that ? 

Simone. She is Donati's niece. 



I20 DANTE. 

Dante. If I return, 

I come as husband of Donati's niece ? 
And follower of his family and faction? — 
Present my compliments, bid all have patience. 
Not far away, a place is waiting those 
Who wish to damn a soul for doing right. 
In which that sort of thing is done far better. 

SiMONE. But 

Dante. No; there is no but. God gives each 
man 
One life where kindle feeling, thought, and 

will ; — 
And bids him hold it like a torch on high 
To light himself and others. Do you claim 
That he should lower it? 

SiMONE. Why, in form, perhaps, 

And forms of different shape hold torches. 

Dante. None 

Can ever plunge the torch beneath earth's mire 
And keep it burning. Yield in form you say ? — 
In form our frames but vehicle the truth. 
Yet by its vehicle the world will rate it. 
When comes the splendor of a monarch's 

march 
Men cheer his chariot, not his character. 
Should I let mine trail, broken, bruised, be- 

mired, 
The world would hiss both car and occupant. 



DANTE. 121 

Enter — Right — Attendant. 
Dante pauses and bozvs to Attendant. 

Attendant. The Marquis comes. Perhaps you 

would receive him. 
Dante. Yes. (to Delegates). Pardon me. 

Exit — Right — Dante and Attendant. 

SiMONE. A game-cock crowing yet, eh? 

But when they drive him from his present 

dunghill, 
He scarce will clap his wings with such a whur. 
No further need deceiving him, I take it ! 
None here will now oppose our seizing him. 
{pointing to the writing desk^ toward which sev- 
eral Delegates move.) 
But first the desk, in it to find the list 
Of Florence traitors, banded to uphold 
The emperor. Come their owner back, provoke 

him, 
And thus invoke the fiend in him to furnish 
Excuses to ofifset the fiend in us. 

Enter — Right — Dante. 

Dante (seeing the Delegates handling his pa- 
pers). What mean you? 

Simone. We are gathering information. 

A man so learned should encourage us. 



122 DANTE. 

Dante. I thought that you were gentlemen from 
Florence. 

SiMONE. Yes, dealing with a traitor from Ver- 
ona. 

Dante. Put back those papers. 

SiMONE. Yes, w^e shall, and use 

Your body as a sack to pack them in. 

Dante (drawing his sword). It will be wet and 
heavy when you do. 
And fewer of you left to carry it. 

(Delegates drazv szvords.) 

Enter — Right — the Marquis with Attendants 
and CiNO. - 

Marquis. Wait! — What is this? — You think we 
dw^ell in Florence ? 
Or fail to furnish guests with knives to carve 
What leaves our larder? — You, forsooth, must 

ply 
Your own blades in each others' carcasses? 
Dante. They seized my papers^ and would seize 

my person. 
Marquis {to Simone and Others). Return 
the papers, and return your persons 
To your own city. 
Simone. Pardon, we were told 

This traitor would no longer be your guest. 



DANTE. 



123 



Marquis. He is my guest, while here. I say 
farewell. 
{He bows to SiMONE and Delegates, 

toward whom some of the Attendants of 

the Marquis move,) 

Exeunt — Left — Simone and Delegates, fol- 
lowed by some of the Attendants. 
Dante {to Marquis). No guest should be a 

pest and peril to you. 
Marquis. Nor I to him. Till you decide to leave 
us, 
You shall not lack protection. 
Dante. After that, 

My soul shall lack what more I need, — a friend 
Mx\RQUis. I wish to speak to you of that — but 
later. 
Exeunt — Right — Marquis and Attendants. 
CiNO {to Dante). Where shall you go? 
Dante. Oh, high 

up in the Alps, 
Too high for anyone to follow me. 
CiNO. To be too high for that, you need no 

Alps. 
Dante. Your phrase is kindly meant, my Cino, 
yet 
Conceive how barren, cold, and colorless 
Is life upon the heights. 



124 



D/NTE. 



CiNO. Conceive, as well, 

How far, and broad, and varied, and sublime 
Are earth and heaven when these are seen from 

them. 
Souls oft are driven from our lower life 
That thus they may explore for us the higher. 

Dante. You mean that when a man is bound, 
feet, limbs, 

Trunk, head, he has no weapon left him save 

His voice. How well that I keep yet these 
papers ! — 

{gesturing toward his desk). 

The slowest lines of thought are like the light- 
ning's 

In this, — they never track the same trail twice. 

Had these been lost, they had been lost forever. 

CiNO. Your pardon, friend ; nor deem it strange 

in me 
That, when we met, my spirit's agitation 
So wrenched the links of memory that they 

failed 
To hold together that which chiefly joined 
My journey hither and my thought of you. 

{taking the objects mentioned from his 
pocket and presenting them to Dx\nte). 
This miniature, Giotto's Beatrice, 
His work and gift. 



DANTE. 



125 



Danie {taking it from Cino). 

Oh, Cino, thank you, thank yon. 
Thank him too for me. 
Cixo (taking papers from his pocket). 

These were rescued too 
By Dino Frescobaldi from your home 
What time the mob made havoc of all else.^^ 
Dante (taking the papers). 

Why, Cino, do you know what you have done ? 
That day when, as you thought, my love ap- 
peared, 
She bade me write of what I just had dreamt. 
While fresh in mind I sketched it, hued by all 
The glory of imagination's dav/n. 
'Tis here ; nor since I lost it, head or heart 
Has ventured to supply a substitute. 
Yet void of it, the path of thought I trod 
Seemed like a day's w^here comes no sun. But 
now — 
Cino. Can mount, and, though none follow, make 
all hear 
Your voice come crying from the wilderness. ''^ 
You know, in ancient times, it was the poets. 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, 
Revealed the truth. The priests could but re- 
peat it. 
Dan':e. And now ours need their repertoire re- 
newed ? 



1.26- DANTE. 

Cixo. They do; nor doubt that poets can renew 
it. 

Though no new message ma}- inspire them, in- 
sight 

May often read through oldest form new 
meaning. 
Dante. Ay, less the lack of truth makes mortals 
fools 

Than lack in thinking of the truth they have. 

One thing, at least, my Cino, life has taught 
me, — 

That reason's God must be a God of reason. 

If so, there Hves no right but reason fashions; 

Nor is there aught that should seem right to 
man 

That fits not reasons fashioned by himself. 

So those who know they own an understand- 
ing. 

And know how all things earthly join to train 
it. 

Yet think of God as all misunderstood, 

Must think with minds whose methods are the 
devil's. 

Pray heaven that we two join not in their error. 

I oft have asked, my Cino, why it is 

That all the world should hurl at one like me, 

From state and church and home, what harms 
mv life 



DANTE. 



127 



Well nigh beyond what slew the martyr 

Stephen ? — 
Why must one live all buried save his voice ? — 
For nothing? — Nay; the paths of Providence 
Were never plotted yet without some plan. 
If God be one, his realm has unity; 
And that quick blade of death, which cleaves 

the reins 
And splits the wheels with which we race 

through life, 
Is but a mystic wand beyond whose touch 
A hidden life speeds on to reach the bar 
Of everlasting justice. ^^ Where that waits 
What need to prove ? one merely needs to show, 
From what life now is, what life shall become. 
So I would do ; and warn men not to take 
Mere earth and sky for that one priceless jewel, 
The soul, that they encase. With gaze on it, 
The men who keep their spirits clean and clear 
From touch or taint of selfishness or vice. 
May oft behold in depths of inner life 
Which nearest lie to nature's inner life. 
The image and the presence that reveal 
The power and purposes that are divine. 

Enter — Left — Attendant. 
{He bows to Dante, who returns the bow.) 



128 IK1NTE. 

Attendant (gesturing tozvard Cino . 
A stranger here awaits the Senior. 
Exit — Left — Attendant. 
Cino. So? — 

Then ''An revoir/' my Dante. Do you know, 
Your words recall what once our aged tutor, 
Latini, taught us ? 
Dante. What was that? 

Cino. Why, this, — 

A poet like a poem is a product. 
Exit — Left — after sheiking hands with Dante. 
Cino. 
Dante looks toward Cino, as he leaves; 
then, taking from his pocket where he has 
placed them^ the miniature of Beatrice, 
and also the papers brought him, and hold- 
ing them in his hands, and gazing at them 
fondly, he zvalks slozuly toward the Cur- 
tains at the rear. He disappears behind 
them. A moment later, they separate, re- 
vealing the Closing Tableau. 



DANTE. 129 



CLOSING TABLEAU. 

The Piazza di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. 
Backing is the Church of Santa Croce, In 
front of it^ on its Pedestal is the great Statue 
of Dante as it now stands. If thought best, 
Beatrice and Others may be grouped below 
it. 

Curtain. 
End of the Drama. 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 131 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 

^"When first the glorious lady of my mind was made manifest 
to mine eyes, even she who was called Beatrice, . . . she 
appeared to me at the beginning of her ninth year almost, and 
I saw her almost at the end of my ninth year. Her dress on 
that day was of a most noble color, a subdued and goodly crim- 
son, girded and adorned in such a sort as best suited with her 
very tender age. At that moment, I say most truly that the spirit 
of life, vv'hich hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the 
heart began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my 
body shook therewith. ... In my boyhood I often went in 
search of her, and found her so noble and praiseworthy that 
certainly of her might have been said those words of the poet 
Homer, 'She seemed to me the daughter not of a mortal man 
but of God.' " — Dante's La Vita Nuova, pp. 2$, 24, 26, from the 
translation, as are all other of the following quotations from 
the same, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

""To the Florentine poets of this new school belonged . . . 
Dino Frescobaldi. . . . But the greatest of them are Guido 
Cavalcanti, Cino de* Sinibuldi da Pistoja, and, in his youthful 
poems, Dante himself." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 132. 

2**After the lapse of so many days that nine years exactly 
were completed since the above-written appearance of this most 
gracious being, on the last of those days, it happened that the 
same wonderful lady appeared to me dressed all in pure white 
between two gentle ladies. . . . She turned her eyes thither 
where I stood sorely abashed. . . . She saluted me with so 
virtuous a bearing that I seemed then and there to behold the 
very limits of blessedness. The hour of her most sweet saluta- 
tion was exactly the ninth of that day; and because it was the 
first time that any words from her reached mine ears, I came 
into such sweetness that I parted thence as one intoxicated." — 
La Vita Nuova, p. 27. 

*"Of the poems contained in the book (La Vita Nuova) the 
first, as Dante liimself informs us, was composed in his eighteenth 



\ 



132 NOTES UPON DANTE. 

year. . . . According to the custom of the time, he sent it to 
several poets, who answered it. Some of these answers are ex- 
tant. Among them is a sonnet by Guido Cavalcanti." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, pp. 204, 205. 

^"It is interesting to read in Dino's book, who equally be- 
longed to the White party, by what reasons, according to his 
opinon, influential Florentines had been decided to follow 
either party. Guido Cavalcanti had done so 'because he was 
a personal enemy of Corso Donati.' " — Federn's Dante and His 
Time, p. 172. 

^**As I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the resemblance of 
an angel upon certain tablets. And while I did thus, chanc- 
ing to turn my head, I perceived that some were standing beside 
me to whom I should have given courteous welcome, and that 
they were observing what I did; also, I learned afterwards that 
they had been there a while before I perceived them," — La Vita 
Nuova, p. 135. 

''"What time she made ready to salute me, the spirit of love 
destroying all other perceptions, thrust forth the feeble spirits of 
mine eyes, saying, 'Do homage unto your mistress,' and, putting 
itself in their place to obey; so that he who would might then 
have beheld Love, beholding the lids of mine eyes shake, And 
when this most gentle lady gave her salutation, Love, 
bred in me such an overpowering sweetness that my body, being 
all subjected thereto, remained many times helpless and passi^/e." 
— La Vita Nuova, pp. 46, 47. 

*"I was in a place whence mine eyes could behold their beati- 
tude; and betwixt me and her, in a direct line, there sat another 
lady of a pleasant favor; who looked round at me many times, 
ir.arveling at my continued gaze which seemed to have her for its 
object. And many perceived that she thus looked; so that, de- 
parting hence, I heard it whispered after me, 'Look you to what 
a pass such a lady hath brought him'; and in saying this they 
named her who had been midway between the most gentle 
Beatrice and mine eyes. Therefore I was reassured, and knew 
that, for that day, my secret had not been become manifest. Then 
immediately it came into my mind that I might make use of this lady 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 133 

as 3. screen to the truth, and so well did I play my part that the 
most of those who had hitherto watched and wondered at me, 
now imagined they had found me out. By her means I kept 
my secret concealed so till some years were gone over; and, for 
VAj better security, I even made divers rhymes in her honor." — 
La Vita Nuova, pp, 33, 34- 

^"He (Cavalcanti) was married for political reasons. . . . 
Rossetti sees a tendency in him to mingle 'the perversity of a 
logician' with *his amorous poetry.' " — Ragg's Dante and His 
Italy, pp. 270, 282. . . . "His father, Cavalcanti, was a noto- 
rious sceptic and materialist. . . . Guido, too, passed for a 
sceptic." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 199. 

io"Then, musing on what I had seen, I proposed to relate the 
same to many poets who were famous in that day; and, f 1 that 
I had made myself in some sort the art of discoursing with 
rhyme, I resolved on making a sonnet. ... I determined 
that I would make a grievous sonnet thereof the which I will 
write here, because it hath certain words in it whereof my lady 
was the immediate cause. These words I laid up with great 
gladness. . . . Wherefore having returned to the city I 
spake of, and considered thereof during certain days, I began a 
poem. . . . After I had recovered from my sickness, I be- 
thought me to write these things in rhyme; deeming it a lovely 
thing to be known. . . . And to the end that this inward 
strife which I had undergone might not be hidden from all sav- 
ing the miserable wretch who endured it, I proposed to write 
a sonnet and to comprehend in it this horrible condition. . . . 
And because I would willingly have spoken to them, if it had 
not been for discreetness, I made in my rhymes as though I 
had spoken, and they had answered me. And thereof I wrote 
two sonnets; in the first of which I addressed them as I would 
fain have done; and in the second related their answer as 
though it had been spoken unto myself." — Frotn Dante's own ac- 
counts in the Vita Nuova of his method of accepting from his 
expereinc^s suggestions for his poems, pp. 29, 35, 95, 142, 87. 

ii*'To this sonnet I received many answers, conveying many 
different opinions; of the which one was sent by him whom I now 
call the first among my friends. . . . And indeed it was when 



134 NOTES UPON DANTE. 

he learned that I was he who had sent those rhymes to him, 
that our friendship commenced" (The friend of whom Dante 
here speaks was Guido Cavalcanti — Rossetti). — La Vita Nuova, 
P' 31- 

**The responsive sonnet breathes a spirit of encouragement and 
comfort; it is the elder poet taking the younger by the hand and 
bidding him be of good cheer." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, 
P. 283. 

^Seeing that the epistle I speak of is in Latin, it belongeth 
not to mine undertaking; more especially as I know that my 
chief friend, for whom I write this book, wished also that the 
whole of it should be in the vulgar tongue." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 
123, 124. 

^^"In the year 1289 Dante . . . took part in the battle of 
Campaldino where the Florentine Guelfs. 15,000 men strong, 
defeated the Ghibellines and the people of Arezzo . . . Dante 
served ... at the seige of the castle of Caprona . . . 
in August of the same year." — Federn's Dante and His Time, 
pp. 201, 202. 

i*"When I behold Bacchina in a rage 
Just like a little lad I trembling stand 

Whose master tells him to hold out his hand. — Cecco An- 
giolieri, anotJier of Dante's literary friends who sings the praises 
of his rather shrewish lady-love, Bacchina." — Ragg's Dante and 
His Italy, p. 197. 

i^"From that time forward, Love quite governed my soul. 
. . . I had nothing left for it but to do all his bidding con- 
tinually . . . albeit her image . . . was yet of so per- 
fect a quality that it never allowed me to be overruled by Love 
without the faithful counsel of reason whensoever such counsel 
was useful." — La Vita Nuova, pp. 25, 26. 

i«"Cosmo Donati was the leader of the Blacks — 'a knight after 
the fashion of the Roman Catiline, but more cruel than he, of 
noble blood and handsome appearance, a perfect orator with the 
finest manners, acutest mind and the very worst disposition,' that 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 135 

is Dino Compagni's description of him. The very beginning of 
his career was a violence done to law, for he liberated a crimi- 
nal of noble birth with armed force. In the battle of Campal- 
dino, it was he who decided the victory by a cavalr}' attack 
which he had been forbidden, under penalty of death, to make." — 
Fed em's Dante and His Times, pp. 171, 172. 

^"^"In the year 1289, the one preceding the death of Beatrice, 
Dante served with the foremost cavalry in the great battle of 
Campaldino, . . . when the Florentines defeated the people of 
Arezzo." — Introduction to Dante's Vita Nuova, by D. Rossetti. 

^*"It came into my mind that I might make use of this lady 
as a screen to the truth ; and so well did I play my part that 
those who had hitherto watched and wondered at me, now imag- 
ined they had found me out. ... I made her my surety in such 
sort that the matter was spoken of by many in terms scarcely cour- 
teous; through the which I had oftenwhiles many troublesome 
hours. And by this it happened (to wit, by this false and evil 
rumor which seemed to misfame me of vice) that she who was 
the destroyer of all evil and the queen of all good, coming where 
I was, denied me her most sweet salutation, in the which alone 
v.as my blessedness." — La Vita Nuova, pp. Z3^ 45- 

i^"In her salutation alone was there any beatitude for me. 

. . When, for the first time, this beatitude was denied me, 
I became possessed with such grief that, parting myself from 
others, I went into a lonely place to bathe the ground with most 
bitter tears." — La Vita Nuova, p. 47. 

2o**This excellent lady came into such favor with all men that 
not only she herself was honored and commended, but through 
her companionship honor and commendation came unto others. 
When she drew near unto any, so much truth and sim- 
plicity entered into his heart . . . she showed herself so 
gentle and so full of all perfection, that she bred in those who 
looked upon her a soothing quiet beyond any speech." — La Vita, 
Nuova, pp. 115, 112, 113. 

-^**I, as was my friend's pleasure, resolved to stand with him 
ai'd do honor to those ladies. But as soon as I had thus re- 
solved, I began to feel a faintness and a throbbing at my left 



136 NOTES UPON DANTE. 

side, which soon took possession of my whole body. Whereupon 
. . . being fearful lest my trembling should be discerned of 
them, I lifted mine eyes to look on those ladies, and then first 
perceived among them the excellent Beatrice. And when I per- 
ceived her, all my senses were overpowered by the great lordshio 
that love obtained, finding himself so near . . . until noth- 
ing but the spirits of sight remained in me; and even these re- 
mained driven out of their own instruments." — La Vita Nuova, 
P- 59- 

--"I received the visit of a friend whom I counted as second 
unto me in the degrees of friendship (Cino) and who, moreover, 
had been united by the nearest kindred to that most gracious 
creature. And when we had a little spoken together, he began 
to solicit me that I should write somewhat in memory of a lady 
who had died; and he disguised his speech so as to seem to be 
speaking of another who was but lately dead; wherefore, I, 
perceiving that his speech was of none other than that blessed 
one herself, told him that it should be done as he required." — 
La Vita Nuova, p. 130. 

23**After this most gracious creature had gone out from among 
us, the whole city came to be, as it were, widowed and despoiled 
of all its dignity." — La Vita Nuova, p. 123. 

2*"Then having sat for some space sorely in thought because 
of the time that was now past, I was so filled with dolorous im- 
aginings that it became outwardly manifest in mine altered coun- 
tenance. Whereupon feeling this, and being in dread lest any 
should have seen me, I lifted mine eyes to look; and then per- 
ceived a young and very beautiful lady. ... It happened after 
this that, whenever I was seen of this lady, she became pale and 
of a piteous countenance, as though it had been with love; 
whereby she remembered me many times of my own most noble 
lady who was wont to be of a like paleness." — La Vita Nuova, 
pp. 138, 140. 

25"At length, by the constant sight of this lady, mine eyes be- 
gan to be gladdened overmuch with her company, through which 
m.any times I had unrest and rebuked myself as a base person; 
also many times I cursed the unsteadfastness of mine eyes." — 
La Vita Nuova, pp. 141, 142. 



NOTES UPON DANTE. j 37 

2«**The Pope by secret understanding with the Blacks sent the 
French prince, Charles of Valois, as 'pacificator' to Florence. 
'He came with the lance of Judas,' Dante says." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, p. 245. 



*^"Dante was no longer a religious pilgrim but a political am- 
bassador. 'Why are you Florentines so obstinate?' said the 
Pope. . . . 'Go back, two of you,* he said, 'and they shall 
have my benediction if they procure that my will be obeyed.' 
. . . Two to go, and one to stay. . . . Which of the 
three shall it be? Boniface had seen Dante face to face; here 
was the man who might thwart him. Better to keep this one in 
honorable imprisonment till the thing should be over and done. 
Was it not during these months when he was forced into un- 
sympathetic intimacy with the inner life of St. Peter's . . . 
that he acquired that fine scorn of the venal and simoniacal 
Roman Curia which made him declare, in after years, that dur- 
ing this very year of Jubilee his exile was being planned in the 
place where all day long they make merchandise of Christ." — 
Ragg's Dante and His Italy, pp. 32, 33. 



28"Dante's own estimate of Cino is clear from the abundant 
references in the Eloquentia where Dante habitually speaks of 
himself as 'Cino's friend.' . . . The first and strongest bond 
of sympathy was that sympathy of mind and taste." — Dante and 
His Italy; Ragg, pp. 286, 287. 

^"Witch craft and necromancy were normal factors in daily 
life." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, p. 144. "Divination and 
necromancy were largely resorted to in moments of crisis." — 
Idem., p. 143. "So great a hold had these mission preachers on 
the popular imagination, that a very general belief was enter- 
tained in their miraculous powers, and some of them had the 
reputation of being able even to raise the dead." — Idem, pp. 97, 98. 
"The Florentines whose reputation for wit v/as . . . great 
. . on hearing that the Dominican John of Vicenza con- 
templated a visit to Florence . . . cried out in mock alarm: 
'For heaven's sake don't let him come here. For we have heard 
that he raises the dead, and we are already so many that our 
city will scarcely hold us.' " — Idem., p. 200. 



i3S ::orii:j upon dante, 

^'-'"After v/riting this sonnet, it was given unto me to behold a 
very wonderful vision, wherein I saw things which determined 
me that I would say nothing further of this most blessed one 
until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning 
her. And to this end I labor all I can, as she well knoweth. 
Wherefore if it be his pleasure through whom is the life of all 
things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope 
that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been 
written of any woman. After which may it seem good unto him 
who is the Master of Grace that my spirit should go hence to behold 
tne glcry of its lady; to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now 
gazeth continually on his countenance qui est omnia scpcula 
benedictus. Laus Deo." — The concluding paragraph of La Vita 
Nuova, p. 159. **As he explains it, the heavenly powers by med- 
iation of loving and friendly spirits had so decreed it that his 
soul should be shown the way through the metaphysical realms 
where he could see the terrible retribution of God's justice and 
be satisfied." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 269. From the 
accounts given, we must infer that Dante supposed himself to 
have had an external vision of Beatrice, clearly separated from 
that which might be experienced in a mere dream; and that 
this vision made "through the mediation of loving and friendly 
spirits," was of such a character as to cause him to spend most 
of the rest of his life developing from his own imagination the 
general conception of justice underlying his great poem. The 
scene in Act Fourth of this drama represents a very common, 
if not the most comm.on, v/ay in which, in all ages, men have 
been led to suppose themselves to have had an external vision 
of one dead; as well as the most common way in which, having 
had it, the vision has induced them to develop the general 
thought which, at the time of having it, has controlled them. 
The fact that Dante, so frank with reference to every other ex- 
perience related in La Vita Nuova, never explained the cir- 
cumstances or character of this vision, is in exact accord with 
what we should expect from a wise man conscious of the possi- 
bilities of delusion and deception connected vvith an experience 
such as is depicted in the drama. He would not have risked the 
danger of being thought a consulter of sorcerers, many of whom 
in those times were disreputable violators of the law, or of 
being thought a dupe of a monk of the church, following their 
practices in a supposed more legitimate way. At the same time, 
in the circumstances, notwithstanding much that could not abso- 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 



"39 



lutely convince himself, much less others, it is perfectly con- 
ceivable that the poet's sympathetic and imaginative nature should 
have been so profoundly influenced by the possibilities suggested 
by what he had experienced that this should have had a forma- 
tive effect upon his whole career. — The Author. 

^^"The sight of this lady brought me into so unwonted a con- 
dition that I often thought of her as one too dear to rae; and I 
began to consider her thus. . . . Perhaps it was Love him- 
self who set her in my path, so that my life might find peace. 
And there were times when I thought yet more fondly, until my 
heart consented unto its reasoning. But, when it had so con- 
sented, my thought would often turn round upon me as moved 
by reason and cause me to say within myself, *What hope is this 
which would console me after so base a fashion?' " — La Vita 
Nuova, p. 144. "Boccaccio tells us that Dante was married to 
Gemm.a Donati about a year after the death of Beatrice. Can 
Gemma then be the *Iady' . . . his love for whom Dante so 
condemns?" — Rossetti's Note on the preceding passage. 

*2**At the burial of a lady of the Frescobaldi family, a man's 
movem.ents that had been misunderstood, had caused bloodshed. 
. . . In the year 1300, while Dante was one of the Priors, 
they made an attempt to insure peace by banishing the most 
unruly chiefs of both parties. Among the exiled blacks was 
Corso Donati, while Dante, with his severe sense of justice, had 
suffered his friend Cavalcanti to be confined at Sarzana, where he 
fell ill from the unhealthy climate, and died . . two months later." — 
Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 240. " 'This unhappy Priorate,* 
he once said, 'was the cause of all my misfortune.' " — Idem., p. 
240. 

82"Dante at this time contracted such enormous debts that 
many years later the family saw itself constrained to sell estates 
to pay them." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 239. 

""The decree against Dante which to this day may be read in 
the so-called Libro del Chiode in the archive of Florence. . . . 
Dante and four others are condemned for peculation, fraud, ex- 
tortion, bribery, and rebellion against the Pope and Charles 
, . . as proof, public fame is alleged. . . . Having failed 



I40 NOTES UPON DANTE. 

to appear in court, all the accused in it were declared outlaws 
and exiles in perpetuity, and if ever one of them should be 
caught on Florence soil he should be burned alive." — Federn's 
Dante and His Time, pp. 246, 247. 

*^"Then there is Dino Frescobaldi, 'famous rhymer of Flor- 
ence,' through whom, if Boccaccio is to be trusted, Dante re- 
ceived back in exile the original draft of the first seven can- 
tos of the Inferno." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, p. 273. "They 
had been left behind, with everything else, in Florence . . . 
hurriedly concealed . . . when he was exiled. . . . And 
with the manuscript, says Boccaccio, came a fervent letter to the 
Marquis . . . urging him to persuade Dante to continue so 
great a work. And so, at the urgent plea of his host Dante 
was induced to proceed. . . . And for this good advice of 
the Malaspina Dante was so grateful, says Benvenuto, that he 
could never say anything good enough of the family." — Idem., 
PP- 322, 333. 

3<^"Cino . . was exiled . . five years after Dante had been 
cast out of Florence, in 1307, the memorable year of the advent 
of Henry VII. . . . One of Cino's poems deserves the last- 
ing approbation of posterity, for in it he urges Dante to con- 
tinue his great poem and so redeem the pledge given at the end 
of the Vita Nuova." — Ragg's Dante and His Italy, pp. 286, 287. 

2'^'*In the year 1310, Henry of Luxemburg came to Italy. By 
no one was he saluted with such exultation as by Dante. He 
wrote letters full of wild and triumphant joy to Rome and 
Florence and to all princes of Italy. He had an audience with 
the Emperor; and in his letters he calls him the 'new Moses' and 
'the Lamb of God.' He was full of the most ardent hopes . . . 
but the enterprise failed, and the Emperor died at Buonconvento 
en August 24, 1 312. . . . What Dante felt at this blow he 
never expressed. Now all was over, all hope gone forever. 
. . . Again he wandered a banished fugitive on unknown 
ways." — Federn's Dante and His Time, p. 262. 

^"This then has been signified to me through the letters 
. . . of several friends that if I were willing to pay a certain 
sum of money and submit to the stigma of being offered up as 



NOTES UPON DANTE. 141 

a sin-offering, I might be pardoned and return at once. . . 
Far from a man ... be the reckless humility of a heart of 
dirt that would allow him like a certain Cioli ... to make 
an offering of himself, as if he were a caitiff. ... If any 
other way can be discerned which does not touch the fame of 
Dante and his honor, that I will accept with alacrity. But if by 
no such way, Florence is to be entered, then Florence I shall 
never enter." — Letter of Dante tr. on page 127 of A Handbook 
to Dante by Thomas Davidson. 

*^"Some suppose the individual in question to be a certain Lippo 
Lari Cioli, who among others is said to have been allowed to re- 
turn to Florence in 1316 on condition that he should walk behind 
the Carroccio with a fool's cap on his head, etc." — Dictionary of 
Proper Names, etc., in the Works of Dante by Paget Trynbee. 

^""Already at the time v/hen Beatrice had been lost to him, 
and his thoughts followed her into the other world, his mind 
was deeply and intensely occupied with the Invisible, and his im- 
agination attracted by its glories and hidden terrors . . . His 
eye pierced through the boundaries of time and space into the 
surrounding sphere of eternity; the wrongs done here were re- 
paired and punished there. To see this, it had become necessary 
or, as he explains it, the heavenly power by mediation of loving 
and friendly spirits had so decreed it that his soul should be 
shown the way, through the metaphysical realms where he could 
see the terrible retribution of God's justice and be satisfied. 
. . . The state of horrible crime on earth was not all — the 
last word was not spoken here — he could be calmer and endure all 
knowing what was to follow." — Federn's Dante and His Time, 
pp. 268, 269. 



Dante 

A Drama 



VX 



